Data encryption service

ABSTRACT

A centralized framework for managing the data encryption of resources is disclosed. A data encryption service is disclosed that provides various services related to the management of the data encryption of resources. The services may include managing application policies, cryptographic policies, and encryption objects related to applications. The encryption objects may include encryption keys and certificates used to secure the resources. In an embodiment, the data encryption service may be included or implemented in a cloud computing environment and may provide a centralized framework for effectively managing the data encryption requirements of various applications hosted or provided by different customer systems. The disclosed data encryption service may provide monitoring and alert services related to encryption objects managed by the data encryption service and transmit the alerts related to the encryption objects via various communication channels.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the benefit and priority to ProvisionalPatent Application No. 62/188,401, filed Jul. 2, 2015, entitled,“MONITORING SYSTEM FOR KEYS AND CERTIFICATES,” Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/188,409, filed Jul. 2, 2015, entitled, “GOVERNANCEPOLICIES FOR KEY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM,” and Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 62/188,424, filed Jul. 2, 2015, entitled, “DATA ENCRYPTION SERVICEWITH CUSTOM ENCRYPTION KEYS,” the entire contents of which are eachhereby incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

This application is also related to application Ser. No. ______,Attorney Docket No. 088325-0968365 (167700US) entitled “DATA ENCRYPTIONSERVICE AND CUSTOMIZED ENCRYPTION MANAGEMENT,” and application Ser. No.______, Attorney Docket No. 088325-0968367 (167800US) entitled“MONITORING AND ALERT SERVICES AND DATA ENCRYPTION MANAGEMENT,” eachfiled on the same day as the present application, the entire contents ofeach are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

BACKGROUND

Data encryption is an effective technique by which secure access tocomputing resources can be provided. These resources may include, forexample, software products, applications (e.g., cloud-basedapplications, enterprise applications, or any other applications), cloudservices, various types of data (e.g., networked files, directoryinformation, databases, or the like) and other resources. For instance,an organization may utilize various data encryption techniques to ensuresecure access to computing resources by users of the organization.Managing the secure access to these different resources may pose severalchallenges. For instance, different subsystems within an organizationmay utilize different resources that have to be encrypted according todifferent encryption requirements based on the types of services theyprovide. For example, business analytics services within an organizationmay utilize resources that have to be encrypted differently fromfinancial services within the organization. As such, finding ways formanaging the data encryption of resources continues to be a priority.

BRIEF SUMMARY

Techniques are provided (e.g., a method, a system, non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing code or instructions executable by oneor more processors) for managing the data encryption of resources. Theresources may include, for instance, software products, applications(e.g., cloud-based applications, enterprise applications, or any otherapplications), cloud services, various types of data (e.g., networkedfiles, directory information, databases, or the like) and otherresources. In some embodiments, the resources may be provided, managed,hosted, or stored by external systems such as third-party systems,organizations, application hosting systems, application providers, cloudservice providers, and the like.

In an embodiment, a data encryption service is disclosed that provides acentralized framework for managing the data encryption of resources. Thedata encryption service provides various services related to themanagement of the data encryption of resources. The services mayinclude, for instance, managing application policies, cryptographicpolicies, and encryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/orcertificates) related to applications. In an embodiment, theapplications may be hosted, provided, or otherwise stored in externalsystems as described above.

In certain embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured toreceive an application policy related to an application and identify aportion of data in the application to be secured based on theapplication policy. The data encryption service may be configured todetermine, based on the application policy, a cryptographic policy forsecuring the portion of the data in the application and generate amapping between the application policy and the cryptographic policy forat least the portion of the application. The data encryption service mayfurther be configured to acquire an encryption object for securing atleast the portion of the data in the application based on thecryptographic policy. In some embodiments, the data encryption servicemay be configured to receive a request from a user that relates to theapplication and in response to the request, secure at least the portionof the application's data in accordance with the application policy, thecryptographic policy and using the encryption object.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured togenerate a mapping between the application and the application policyrelated to the application. In some examples, generating a mappingbetween the application and the application policy related to theapplication may include determining one or more conditions associatedwith the application policy, wherein the one or more conditions specifywhen the application policy for the application is applicable,identifying, based on the application policy, one or more actions to beperformed when one or more of the conditions are satisfied andgenerating the mapping between the application and the applicationpolicy based on the conditions and the actions.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured todetermine that a first condition is associated with the applicationpolicy when a first set of users access the application and determinethat a second condition is associated with the application policy when asecond set of users access the application. In some examples, the secondset of users may be different from the first set of users. The dataencryption service may further be configured to identify, based on theapplication policy, a first encryption to be performed for theapplication, when the first condition is satisfied and identify, basedon the application policy, a second encryption to be performed for theapplication, when the second condition is satisfied.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured todetermine that a first condition is associated with an applicationpolicy for an application when a user accesses a first portion of theapplication and determine that a second condition is associated with theapplication policy for the application when a user accesses a secondportion of the application. The second portion may be different from thefirst portion. The data encryption service may further be configured toidentify, based on the application policy, a first action to beperformed for the application, when the first condition is satisfied andidentify, based on the application policy, a second action to beperformed for the application, when the second condition is satisfied.

In certain embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured togenerate a mapping between the application policy, the cryptographicpolicy, and the encryption object for at least the portion of theapplication and store the mapped information in a data store. In someexamples, the encryption object may include an encryption key or adigital certificate used to secure the application.

In certain embodiments, the data encryption service may be configured totransmit notification information related to the application to a remotecomputing device in response to receiving the request related to theapplication. In some examples, the notification information may includea roll-over date of an encryption object used to secure the application,an expiry date of the encryption object and a renewal date of theencryption object and so on.

The techniques described above and below may be implemented in a numberof ways and in a number of contexts. Several example implementations andcontexts are provided with reference to the following figures, asdescribed below in more detail. However, the following implementationsand contexts are but a few of many.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example block diagram of a computing environment100 for providing data encryption services in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies, in accordance with an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies and cryptographic polices, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies, cryptographic polices, and encryption objects, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 500 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies, inaccordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 600 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies, andcryptographic policies, in accordance with one embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 700 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies,cryptographic policies, and encryption objects, in accordance with oneembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 illustrates a multi-tenant environment 800 in which a dataencryption service 806 can be implemented, according to someembodiments.

FIG. 9 is an exemplary illustration of a policy selection user interface(UI) provided by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary illustration of an encryption object selectionUI provided by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is an exemplary illustration of a notification UI provided bythe data encryption service, in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 12 is an exemplary illustration of the different types ofcustomer-specific information that can be stored in a customer-specificdata store by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13 is an exemplary illustration of the different types ofcustomer-specific information related to applications from varioussubsystems of a customer system that can be stored in acustomer-specific data store by the data encryption service, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1400 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with one embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1500 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with another embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1600 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with another embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 17 illustrates an environment 1700 of a monitoring and alertservice provided by a data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 18 depicts an environment 1800 in which the alert and monitoringservice of the service provider system described in FIG. 17 can beimplemented, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1900 forgenerating alerts related to an encryption object, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 20 depicts a simplified diagram of a distributed system 2000 forimplementing an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 21 is a simplified block diagram of one or more components of asystem environment 2100 in which the data encryption services may beoffered as cloud services, in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary computer system 2200 that may be usedto implement an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, specificdetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofembodiments of the disclosure. However, it will be apparent that variousembodiments may be practiced without these specific details. The figuresand description are not intended to be restrictive. Systems depicted insome of the figures may be provided in various configurations. In someembodiments, the systems may be configured as a distributed system whereone or more components of the system are distributed across one or morenetworks in a cloud computing system.

In an embodiment, a data encryption service is disclosed that provides acentralized framework for managing the data encryption of resources. Thedata encryption service provides various services related to themanagement of the data encryption of resources. These services mayinclude, for instance, managing application policies, cryptographicpolicies, and encryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/orcertificates) related to applications. In an embodiment, theapplications may be hosted, provided, or otherwise stored in externalsystems as described above.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service may be included orimplemented in a cloud computing environment. Such a cloud computingenvironment can include separate identity domains that are isolated fromeach other. Each identity domain can be associated with a separatetenant, or customer system, such as a different business organization.In such a cloud computing environment, each customer system canindividually use the data encryption service in the cloud computingenvironment to secure their individual customer systems as per theirbusiness application and corporate needs.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service provides a centralizedframework for effectively managing the data encryption requirements ofvarious applications hosted or provided by different customer systems.The disclosed data encryption service provides various interfaces forusers of the customer systems to interact with and utilize the servicesof the data encryption service. In some examples, the users may utilizethese interfaces to provide and/or select the appropriatecustomer-specific information such as application policies andencryption objects related to applications provided by the customersystems. The disclosed data encryption service may be configured tostore application policies, cryptographic policies, and encryptionobjects related to applications managed by the various customer systemsin different customer-specific data stores.

In certain embodiments, the disclosed data encryption service may beconfigured to receive an application policy related to an applicationand determine the appropriate encryption to be applied to data in theapplication based on the application policy. In some embodiments, thedata encryption service may be configured to determine a cryptographicpolicy to be applied to encrypt the data in the application inaccordance with the application policy and acquire the appropriateencryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) forencrypting the data in the application in accordance with thecryptographic policy and the application policy.

In certain embodiments, the disclosed data encryption service may beconfigured to perform the encryption of data in the application atruntime based, for example, on a request received from a user. The dataencryption service may be configured to determine the appropriateencryption to be applied to the data in the application based on theapplication policy, the cryptographic policy, and the encryption objectsrelated to the application and transmit an encrypted version of the datain the application to the user on a user device.

In accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure, thedisclosed data encryption service may be configured to providemonitoring and alert services related to encryption objects (e.g.,encryption keys and certificates) managed by the data encryptionservice. The monitoring and alert services may include transmittingalerts related to the encryption objects via various communicationchannels when one or more conditions related to the encryption objectsare satisfied. The data encryption service may be configured to transmitthe alerts via one or more communication channels such as email, InstantMessaging (IM), Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service(MMS) Application-to-Application messaging, and the like. Additionaldetails of the operations performed by the data encryption service arediscussed in detail below.

Data Encryption Service

FIG. 1 illustrates an example block diagram of a computing environment100 for providing data encryption services in accordance with certainembodiments of the present disclosure. As shown, computing environment100 includes user devices 102(1)-102(N) (collectively, user devices 102)communicatively coupled to a service provider system 106 via acommunication network 108. In an embodiment, service provider system 106may be a data encryption system configured to provide data encryptionservices for the users of user devices 102. Communication network 108facilitates communications between user devices 102 and service providersystem 106. Communication network 108 can be of various types and caninclude one or more communication networks. For example, communicationnetwork 108 can include, without limitation, the Internet, a wide areanetwork (WAN), a local area network (LAN), an Ethernet network, a publicor private network, a wired network, a wireless network, and the like,and combinations thereof. Different communication protocols may be usedto facilitate the communications including both wired and wirelessprotocols such as WebSockets that provide a full-duplex communicationchannel over a single TCP connection, IEEE 802.XX suite of protocols,TCP/IP, IPX, SAN, AppleTalk, Bluetooth, and other protocols. In general,communication network 108 may include any communication network orinfrastructure that facilitates communications between user devices 102and service provider system 106.

User devices 102 may be general purpose personal computers (including,by way of example, personal computers and/or laptop computers runningvarious versions of Microsoft Windows and/or Apple Macintosh operatingsystems), cell phones or PDAs (running software such as MicrosoftWindows Mobile and being Internet, e-mail, SMS, Blackberry, or othercommunication protocol enabled), workstation computers running any of avariety of commercially-available UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems(including without limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operatingsystems), or any other computing device. For example, user devices 102may be any other electronic device, such as a thin-client computer,Internet-enabled gaming system, and/or personal messaging device,capable of communicating over a network (e.g., network 108). Althoughexemplary system environment 100 is shown with three user devices, anynumber of user and/or client computing devices may be supported, inother embodiments.

Service provider system 106 may comprise one or more computers and/orservers which may be general purpose computers, specialized servercomputers (including, by way of example, PC servers, UNIX servers,mid-range servers, mainframe computers, rack-mounted servers, etc.),server farms, server clusters, or any other appropriate arrangementand/or combination. The computing devices that make up service providersystem may run any of operating systems or a variety of additionalserver applications and/or mid-tier applications, including HTTPservers, FTP servers, CGI servers, Java servers, database servers, andthe like. Exemplary database servers include without limitation thosecommercially available from Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, IBM and the like.

In some embodiments, service provider system 106 may be implemented asan enterprise computing system or a cloud computing system comprisingone or more computers and/or servers that may include those describedabove. Service provider system 106 may include several subsystems and/ormodules, including some, which may not be shown. For example, serviceprovider system 106 may include a data encryption service 104, one ormore data stores 112 and an application data service 126. Serviceprovider system 106 may have more or fewer subsystems and/or modulesthan shown in the figure, may combine two or more subsystems and/ormodules, or may have a different configuration or arrangement ofsubsystems and/or modules. Subsystems and modules of service providersystem 106 may be implemented in software (e.g., program code,instructions executable by a processor), firmware, hardware, orcombinations thereof. In some embodiments, the software may be stored ina memory (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable medium), on a memorydevice, or some other physical memory and may be executed by one or moreprocessing units (e.g., one or more processors, one or more processorcores, one or more GPUs, etc.).

As noted above, in certain embodiments, service provider system 106 mayinclude a data encryption service 104. Data encryption service 104 maybe configured to provide data encryption services to the users ofservice provider system 106. For instance, users of service providersystem 106 could include application hosting systems 110 that host,manage, provide, and/or store resources such as software products,applications (e.g., cloud-based applications, enterprise applications,or any other applications), cloud services, various types of data (e.g.,networked files, directory information, databases, or the like) andother resources. Users of service provider system 106 could also includeusers of user devices 102 who wish to interact with and utilizeapplications hosted by the application hosting systems or applicationsstored in the service provider system. In some embodiments, the dataencryption services provided by data encryption service 104 may include,for instance, managing application policies, cryptographic policies, andencryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) relatedto applications hosted by, managed by, or otherwise stored inapplication hosting systems 110.

Data stores 112 can be implemented using a database (e.g., a documentdatabase, a relational database, or other type of database), a filestore, a combination thereof, or some other information store. In anembodiment, data stores 112 may include an application information datastore 114, an encryption object data store 116, a cryptographic policiesdata store 118, and an application mapping information data store 120.Application information data store 114 may store information related toa variety of applications hosted by, provided by, managed by orotherwise stored in application hosting systems 110. The informationstored in application data store 114 could include, for example, anapplication identifier, an application name, an application version andapplication policies related to one or more applications. As notedabove, applications may include, for instance, cloud-based applications,enterprise applications, cloud services, various types of data (e.g.,networked files, directory information, databases, or the like), wordprocessors, spreadsheets, accounting applications, web browsers, webapplications, messaging services, native applications, data managementapplications (e.g., file systems, object storage systems, backup systemslike Network Attached Stores, backup system or the like) or any otherapplications.

Encryption objects data store 116 may store information related to avariety of encryption objects such as encryption keys and certificates.Encryption objects data store 116 may also store metadata related to theencryption objects, such as, for example, the type of encryption object,the strength of the encryption object, the expiration date of theencryption object, the issuance or creation date of the encryptionobject, and the like. As described herein, an encryption key refers to avariable value that is applied to a string or block of unencrypted textusing an algorithm to produce encrypted text, or a variable value thatis applied to decrypt encrypted text. A certificate may refer to anelectronic document such as a public key certificate (e.g., a digitalcertificate, or an identity certificate) that can be used to proveownership about an owner's identity. A certificate may includeinformation about a key, information about its owner's identity, and thedigital signature of an entity that has verified that the certificate'scontents are correct.

Cryptographic policies data store 118 may store information related to avariety of cryptographic policies. Cryptographic policies may specify,for instance, a particular cryptographic algorithm to be used to securean application or portions of the application. Cryptographic policiesmay specify the types of encryption objects (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be used to encrypt applications. Cryptographicalgorithms may include, for example, encryption algorithms, signingalgorithms, hashing algorithms, and the like. Examples of encryptionalgorithms may include, for instance, symmetric algorithms, asymmetricalgorithms, stream ciphers, key strength algorithms, and the like.Symmetric algorithms (also known as shared key algorithms) may involvethe use of symmetric-key schemes, in which the encryption key is thesame as the decryption key. Thus, communicating parties must have thesame key before they can achieve secure communication. Asymmetricalgorithms (also known as public key algorithms) may use different keysfor encryption and decryption. Examples of asymmetric algorithms mayinclude, the RSA algorithm, Digital Signature Algorithm, and the like.In some embodiments, cryptographic policies may also include hashingalgorithms. Hashing refers to a form of cryptographic security in whicha message is typically condensed into an irreversible fixed-lengthvalue, called a hash. Examples of hashing algorithms may include, SHA-1,MD5 and the like.

In some examples, cryptographic policies data store 118 may storeinformation related to a type of initialization vector (i.e., anarbitrary number that can be used along with a secret key for dataencryption) to use during data encryption, a type of key coding that isto be used while returning keys and/or certificates to a requester,algorithmic specific values such as the number of iterations and modesof operation used by cryptographic algorithms to encrypt data (such ascipher block chaining modes and padding modes) and the like. In otherexamples, cryptographic policies data store 118 may store informationrelated encryption objects such as certificate validity, key validity,key usage, key rollover policies, certificate auto-renewal policies, andso on.

In some embodiments, application mapping information data store 120 maybe configured to store a variety of information that associates and/ormaps applications to their application policies, cryptographic policies,and encryption objects. For instance, application mapping informationdata store 120 may pre-compute and store such mapping information insituations where the data encryption service is required to handle alarge volume of requests and a diverse nature of requests from users whowish to utilize the services of the data encryption service. When a newapplication arrives to the data encryption service, application mappinginformation data store 120 may utilize the stored information todetermine the appropriate mapping to be applied to the application basedon its application policy, cryptographic policy, and encryption objects.FIGS. 2-4 are exemplary illustrations of various types of informationthat may be stored in application mapping information data store 120, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Application hosting systems 110(1)-110(N) (collectively, applicationhosting systems 110) may represent external systems that can provide,host, manage or store applications. For instance, application hostingsystems 110 may represent a cloud service provider, a third-partysystem, or an organization that can host a variety of applications. Asnoted above, these applications may include, for instance, cloud-basedapplications, enterprise applications, cloud services, various types ofdata (e.g., networked files, directory information, databases, or thelike), word processors, spreadsheets, accounting applications, webbrowsers, web applications, messaging services, native applications, orany other applications. The applications may also include, for instance,Business Applications (SaaS e.g. Customer Experience Suite, Benefits andCompensation suite etc.), Platform services (PaaS—like Oracle's DataVisualization Cloud etc.), Infrastructure services (IaaS—like compute,storage systems, Load balancing systems etc.) While not shown in FIG. 1,application hosting systems 110 may also be communicatively coupled toservice provider system 106 via communication network 108.

Application hosting systems 110 may be implemented or included in acomputing system. Application hosting systems 110 may be implemented inhardware, firmware, software, or combinations thereof. Applicationhosting systems 110 may be implemented in a computing device, such as aPDA, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, awearable computer, a pager, etc. Application hosting systems 110 can beimplemented using one or more memory storage devices and one or moreprocessors. A memory storage device can be accessible to theprocessor(s) and can include instructions stored thereon which, whenexecuted by the processor(s), cause the processor(s) to implement one ormore operations disclosed herein.

In certain embodiments, application hosting systems 110 may interactwith data encryption service 104 to utilize the services provided by thedata encryption service. For instance, in an embodiment, a user (e.g., asystem administrator) of an application hosting system 110 may interactwith data encryption service 104 by transmitting a request to the dataencryption service. The request may include, for instance, anapplication policy related to an application. There are various ways inwhich application hosting system 110 may transmit a request to dataencryption service 104. For instance, a user (e.g., a systemadministrator) of application hosting system 110 may interact with abrowser application executed by the application hosting system and theinteraction may cause the browser application to generate a request todata encryption service 104. In an example, the request may include anapplication policy related to an application hosted by applicationhosting system 110. In other examples, a request to the data encryptionservice may be automatically generated by a provisioning system withinthe application hosting system that provisions applications for theapplication hosting system. For instance, the provisioning system maymake an application programming interface (API) call to the dataencryption service to request that a set of policies be bound to theapplication being provisioned by the provisioning system

The application policy may include information regarding the manner inwhich an application, portions of the application and/or data createdand/or manipulated by the application are to be secured. An applicationpolicy can specify a set of conditions that indicate when an applicationpolicy for an application is applicable and a set of actions that are tobe performed when one or more of the conditions are satisfied. Forexample, an application policy for an email application may specify thata user's password should meet a certain criterion (i.e., include aspecific number of characters and/or be of a specific length) when theuser logs into the email application.

In certain examples, an application policy may specify the manner inwhich data in an application has to be secured when a set of usersaccess the application or portions of the application. For instance, theapplication policy can specify that the data in an application should beencrypted with an encryption key of a particular key strength and/or keylength when the application is being accessed by a manager of anorganization and encrypted using an encryption key of a differentstrength when the application is accessed by an end-user of theorganization. Application policies may also specify for instance, how aparticular application or portions of the application are required to besecured. For instance, an application policy can specify that data in anapplication requires to be secured using a hashing algorithm, or thatthe data in an application requires to be secured using an encryptionkey and/or a certificate that needs to be refreshed at pre-determinedintervals of time.

Upon receiving an application policy for an application as describedabove, data encryption service 104 may perform the data encryptionrelated to the application. For instance, in an embodiment, based uponthe application policy, data encryption service 104 may identifyportions of data in the application that are to be encrypted anddetermine an appropriate cryptographic policy to be applied to the datain the application or portions of the data in the application based onthe application policy. In certain embodiments, data encryption service104 may determine the appropriate encryption objects (e.g., encryptionkeys and/or certificates) to be acquired for encrypting the data in theapplication based on the cryptographic policy and the applicationpolicy.

In an embodiment, data encryption service 104 may include an applicationpolicy engine 122 and an application policy handler 124. These modulesmay include or be provided using one or more computers and/or serverswhich may be general purpose computers, specialized server computers,server farms, server clusters, or any other appropriate arrangementand/or combination. The various modules of data encryption service 104depicted in FIG. 1 are meant for illustrative purposes only and are notintended to limit the scope of embodiments of the present disclosure.Alternative embodiments may include more or fewer modules than thoseshown in FIG. 1.

Application policy engine 122 may be configured to receive anapplication policy for an application (e.g., from a user of applicationhosting system 110) and identify portions of the application that haveto be secured based on the application policy. For instance, applicationpolicy engine 122 may be configured to receive an application policy fora financial application from the user of application hosting system 100and identify based on the application policy that a first portion ofdata in the application comprises information related to compensationand benefits and that a second portion of data in the applicationcomprises information related to sales data analytics. In certainembodiments, application policy engine 122 may then be configured tocreate a mapping between the application and its application policy. Anexample of a mapping of an application to its application policy byapplication policy engine 122 is shown in FIG. 2.

Application policy engine 122 may then be configured to determine acryptographic policy for securing the data in the application oridentified portions of the data in the application, based on theapplication policy. For instance, application policy engine 122 may beconfigured to interact with cryptographic policies data store 118 toretrieve the appropriate cryptographic policy to apply to the data inthe application or portions thereof, based on the application policy.For instance, continuing with the example of the financial applicationdiscussed above, application policy engine 122 may be configured todetermine, based on the application policy, that a portion of the datain the application that relates to compensation and benefits has to beencrypted using an encryption algorithm that uses a signing algorithm,whereas a portion of the data in the application that relates to salesdata analytics has to be encrypted using an encryption algorithm thatuses an asymmetric encryption algorithm. In some embodiments,application policy engine 122 may be configured to create a mappingbetween an application, its application policy and the cryptographicpolicy to be used to encrypt the application. An example of a mapping ofan application to its application policy and cryptographic policy byapplication policy engine 122 is shown in FIG. 3.

In some embodiments, application policy engine 122 may be configured todetermine the appropriate encryption objects (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be acquired for encrypting the data in theapplication or portions thereof, in accordance with the cryptographicpolicy and the application policy. For instance, application policyengine 122 may be configured to determine, based on the cryptographicpolicy and the application policy, that an encryption key, E_(K) of 128bit strength is required to be used to encrypt the portion of the datain the application that relates to compensation and benefits whereas anRSA key, E_(K) of 1024 bit strength is required to be used to encryptthe portion of the data in the application that relates to sales dataanalytics. Application policy engine 122 may then be configured toacquire the appropriate encryption key for securing the data in theapplication or portions thereof. For instance, application policy engine122 may transmit a request to encryption objects data store 116 toretrieve the appropriate encryption key from encryption objects datastore 116. If application policy engine 122 determines that theencryption object (e.g., encryption key and/or certificate) is notavailable in encryption objects data store 116, then in someembodiments, application policy engine 122 may be configured to generatethe appropriate encryption object to be used to secure the data in theapplication or portions thereof and store the generated encryptionobject in the encryption objects data store. In some embodiments, theencryption objects may be stored in application hosting systems 110 andapplication policy engine 122 may also be configured to acquire therelevant encryption objects to encrypt the data in the application fromapplication hosting systems 110.

In certain embodiments, application policy engine 122 may be configuredto create a mapping between an application, its application policy, itscryptographic policy and the encryption object (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be used to secure the data in the application.An example of a mapping of an application to its application policy,cryptographic policy, and encryption object is shown in FIG. 4. In anembodiment, the mapping of information between applications, applicationpolicies, cryptographic policies and encryption objects is stored inapplication mapping information database 120.

Application policy handler 124 may be configured to perform theencryption of data in an application at runtime based, for example, on arequest received from a user of user device 102. For instance,application policy handler 124 may determine, at runtime, theappropriate encryption to be applied to the data in the application byinteracting with application policy engine 122 to determine theappropriate application policy, the cryptographic policy, and theencryption objects to be applied to the application. Application policyhandler 124 may perform the encryption of the data in the application,at run time, based on the application policy, the cryptographic policy,and the encryption object and transmit an encrypted version of theapplication's data to the user on user device 102 via application dataservice 126.

There are various ways in which application policy handler 124 may beconfigured to receive a request from user device 102. In one instance, arequest may be generated as a result of a user's interactions with userdevice 102. For example, a user may interact with a browser applicationexecuted by user device 102 and the interaction may cause the browserapplication to generate a request that is transmitted to applicationpolicy handler 124. In an embodiment, the request may be a request fromthe user to access an application via user device 102. For example, theapplication may be a mobile application hosted by or provided byapplication hosting system 110 that is preloaded onto the user's device.Or, for example, the application may be an application that is obtainedby the user by downloading the application from the Internet or bydownloading the application from an online store. The application mayinclude, for example, a word processor, a database program, a webbrowser, an email application, a tax application, a directoryapplication, an expense report application, a log-in application, alibrary application, a customer relationship management (CRM) softwareapplication, or the like.

In some embodiments, the request may be received by application dataservice 126 in service provider system 106 which may then transmit therequest to application policy handler 124. Application data service 126may be configured to provide application services (e.g., receiving andresponding to requests related to applications) to users of user devices102. In one instance, application data service 126 may be configured toprovide application services to the users via a SaaS platform. The SaaSplatform may be configured to provide services that fall under the SaaScategory. The SaaS platform may manage and control the underlyingsoftware and infrastructure for providing the SaaS services. Byutilizing the services provided by the SaaS platform, users of userdevices 102 can utilize applications accessible by service providersystem 106, which, in an embodiment, can be implemented as a cloudinfrastructure system. Thus, users can acquire the application servicesprovided by the service provider system without the need for the usersto purchase separate licenses and support. Various different SaaSservices may be provided. In one embodiment, users of user devices 102may utilize application data service 120 to utilize the data encryptionservices provided by subsystems and/or modules of the service providersystem.

In certain embodiments, application policy engine 122 may transmitnotification information to application hosting systems 110.Notification information may be transmitted at pre-determined intervalsof time to the application hosting systems. The pre-determined intervalsof time may be determined by a system administrator of service providersystem 106 or automatically determined by application policy engine 122.Notification information that is transmitted may include, for instance,when an encryption key associated with an application should be rolledover as per the application policy, when an application policy for anapplication should be renewed, when an application policy for anapplication will expire and the like.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies, in accordance with an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In an embodiment, the mapping of applications to applicationpolicies may be performed by application policy engine 122 in dataencryption service 104. In one example, the mapping of an application toan application policy may include determining one or more conditionsassociated with the application policy that specify when an applicationpolicy for an application is applicable. The mapping of an applicationto an application policy may further include identifying one or moreactions to be performed when one or more of the conditions aresatisfied. For instance, application policy engine 122 may determinethat an application policy P1 for an application A1 is applicable when auser accesses the application A1. Thus, application policy engine 122may determine that the user's access to the application A1 is acondition (C1) that makes the application policy P1 applicable toapplication A1. Application policy engine 122 may then identify, basedon the application policy P1, that the data in the application is to beencrypted using an encryption key of a particular strength when thecondition C1 is satisfied. Thus, application policy engine 122 maydetermine that the ‘action’ to be performed is the encryption of thedata in the application using an encryption key of a particular strengthwhen the user accesses the application. In some embodiments, applicationpolicy engine 122 may identify at least a portion of the data in theapplication to be encrypted based on the conditions and actionsassociated with the application policy.

In some instances, application policy engine 122 may determine that afirst condition C1 and a second condition C2 are associated with anapplication policy (e.g., P2) for an application (e.g., A2). Forinstance, application policy engine 122 may determine that a firstcondition C1 is associated with the application policy P2 when a firstset of users access the application A2 and that a second condition C2 isassociated with the application policy P2 when a second set of usersaccess the application A2. The first set of users may be different fromthe second set of users. For instance, the first set of users mayinclude administrative entities in an organization and the second set ofusers may include end-users of the organization. Application policyengine 122 may then identify, based on the application policy P2, afirst action A1 that specifies that the data in the application A2 is tobe encrypted using an encryption key of a specific strength when thefirst set of users access the application and a second action A2 thatspecifies that the data in the application A2 is to be encrypted usingan encryption key of a different strength when the second set of usersaccess the application.

In some examples, application policy engine 122 may determine that afirst condition C1 is associated with an application policy (e.g., P3)for an application (e.g., A3) when a user accesses a first portion ofthe data in the application and that a second condition C2 is associatedwith the application policy P3 when the user accesses a second portionof the data in the application that is different from the first portion.Application policy engine 122 may then identify, based on theapplication policy P3, a first action A1 that is to be performed whenthe user accesses the first portion of the data in the application and asecond action A2 to be performed when the user accesses the secondportion of the data in the application. For instance, the actions A1 andA2 may specify that the data in the application A3 is to be encryptedusing an encryption key of a particular strength depending on whetherthe user accesses the first portion or the second portion of the data inthe application.

It is to be appreciated that the mapping of applications to applicationpolicies illustrated in FIG. 2 is not intended to limit the scope of thepresent disclosure but is merely discussed to provide examples of themanner in which applications may be mapped to application policies.Additional mappings and/or different mappings between applications,application policies and conditions applicable to application policiesmay be identified and/or applied to applications, in other embodiments.

For instance, a cloud service may be owned and operated by a customersystem. In certain situations, the customer may wish to delegate theoperation of its cloud service to a cloud vendor, while stillmaintaining the use and ownership of the service. In such a model, users(e.g., an administrator) of the cloud service should be able to performadministrative actions to start/stop/patch/upgrade/monitor the serviceitself, but not be able to access data used by the cloud service whenthe customers of the customer system use the cloud service. Anappropriate application policy can identify which data is sensitive andneeds encryption. A cryptography policy can identify what algorithms,key strengths, encryption mode is to be used. At runtime, depending onwhether an application is being used by a user of the customer system ora user of the cloud vendor, the data encryption service can determinethe appropriate encryption to be applied to the data in the application.Additionally, the data encryption service can determine if the user mustbe returned access to the decrypted data or not. One of ordinary skillin the art would recognize many variations, modifications, andalternatives.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies and cryptographic polices, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, the mapping ofapplications to application policies and cryptographic polices may beperformed by application policy engine 122 in data encryption service104. There are various ways in which a cryptographic policy can bemapped to an application based on its application policy. For instance,per the example discussed in FIG. 2, application policy engine 122 maydetermine that the cryptographic policy to be mapped to an applicationshould be an asymmetric encryption algorithm (e.g., RSA) based on theapplication policy (e.g., P1) associated with the application (e.g.,A1).

In certain examples, application policy engine 122 may determine, basedon the application policy P2 associated with the application A2, that acryptographic policy based on a first hash function (Secure HashAlgorithm-1) is to be applied when a first condition C1 is associatedwith the application policy P2 is satisfied and that a cryptographicpolicy based on a second hash function (Secure Hash Algorithm-2) is tobe applied when a second condition C2 is associated with the applicationpolicy P2 is satisfied.

In another example, application policy engine 122 may determine, basedon the application policy P3 associated with the application A3, that afirst portion of the data in the application (e.g., a portion of theapplication that relates to compensation and benefits) is to beencrypted using a cryptographic policy that uses a symmetric encryptionalgorithm, whereas a second portion of the data in the application(e.g., a portion of the application that relates to sales dataanalytics) is to be encrypted using a cryptographic policy that uses anasymmetric encryption algorithm.

For instance, application policy engine 122 may determine, based on anapplication policy of an application (e.g., a storage application) thatthe data in the application should be encrypted with a cryptographicpolicy that uses a symmetric key based on AES-256 that can be used toencrypt/decrypt data written to block storage. In addition, applicationpolicy engine 122 can determine that the key needs to be minimallyunique to each customer and specific to each storage volume. It is to beappreciated that the associations of applications to their applicationpolicies and cryptographic policies illustrated in FIG. 3 are notintended to limit the scope of the present disclosure but are merelydiscussed to provide examples of the manner in which policies related toan application may be applied. Additional and/or different mappingsbetween applications, application policies and cryptographic policiesmay be identified and/or applied, in other embodiments. One of ordinaryskill in the art would recognize many variations, modifications, andalternatives.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary illustration of a mapping of applications toapplication policies, cryptographic polices, and encryption objects, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. In anembodiment, the mapping of applications to application policies,cryptographic polices, and encryption objects may be performed byapplication policy engine 122 in data encryption service 104. There arevarious ways in which an encryption object (e.g., encryption keys and/orcertificates) can be applied to the data in an application based on itsapplication policy and cryptographic policy. For instance, per theexample discussed in FIGS. 2 and 3 above, application policy engine 122may determine that a 1024 bit RSA encryption key is to be used to securethe data in the application A1 based on its application policy P1 andbased on determining that a cryptographic policy based on an asymmetricencryption algorithm (e.g., RSA) is to be applied to the data in theapplication based on the application policy P1.

Continuing with the example discussed in FIGS. 2 and 3, applicationpolicy engine 122 may determine, based on the application policy P2 andthe cryptographic policy (e.g., Secure Hash Algorithm-1) associated withthe application A2 that a 160-bit hash value is to be used to encryptthe data in the application A2 when the first condition C1 associatedwith the application policy P2 is satisfied. Application policy engine122 may further determine, based on the application policy P2 that a224-bit hash value is to be used to encrypt the data in the applicationA2 when the second condition C2 associated with the application policyP2 is satisfied.

Further, based on the example discussed in FIGS. 2 and 3, applicationpolicy engine 122 may determine, based on the application policy P3 andthe cryptographic policy (e.g., Symmetric encryption Algorithm)associated with the application A3 that a stream cipher is to be used toencrypt the data in the application A3 when the first condition C1associated with the application policy P3 is satisfied. Applicationpolicy engine 122 may further determine, based on the application policyP3 that digital signature algorithm (DSA) is to be used to secure thedata in the application A3 when the second condition C2 associated withthe application policy P3 is satisfied

As another example, application policy engine 122 may determine, basedon the application policy P3 and the cryptographic policy (e.g.,Symmetric encryption Algorithm) associated with an application thatpersonal health information (PHI) and Personally identifiableinformation (PII) in the application might need to be encrypteddifferently depending on whether it is at rest or it is in motion(transmission over a network). In motion, the application policy enginemay determine based on the application policy that the network mustminimally use a particular cipher suite of a particular cipher strength.At rest, the application policy engine may determine that theapplication's data might need to be encrypted with a different cipherstrength.

It is to be appreciated that the associations of applications to theirapplication policies, cryptographic policies, and encryption objectsillustrated in FIG. 4 are not intended to limit the scope of the presentdisclosure but are merely discussed to provide examples of the manner inwhich policies related to an application may be applied. Additionaland/or different mappings between applications, application policies,cryptographic policies, and encryption objects may be identified and/orapplied, in other embodiments. One of ordinary skill in the art wouldrecognize many variations, modifications, and alternatives.

FIGS. 5-7 illustrate example flow diagrams showing processes 500, 600,and 700 for managing data encryption for applications, in accordancewith an embodiment of the present disclosure. The processes areillustrated as logical flow diagrams, each operation of which representsa sequence of operations that can be implemented in hardware, computerinstructions, or a combination thereof. In the context of computerinstructions, the operations represent computer-executable instructionsstored on one or more computer-readable storage media that, whenexecuted by one or more processors, perform the recited operations.Generally, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs,objects, components, data structures, and the like that performparticular functions or implement particular data types. The order inwhich the operations are described is not intended to be construed as alimitation, and any number of the described operations can be combinedin any order and/or in parallel to implement the processes.

Additionally, some, any, or all of the processes may be performed underthe control of one or more computer systems configured with executableinstructions and may be implemented as code (e.g., executableinstructions, one or more computer programs, or one or moreapplications) executing collectively on one or more processors, byhardware, or combinations thereof. As noted above, the code may bestored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in the formof a computer program comprising a plurality of instructions executableby one or more processors. The computer-readable storage medium may benon-transitory.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 500 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies, inaccordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure. In someaspects, the process 500 of FIG. 5 may be performed by applicationpolicy engine 122 in service provider system 106 shown in FIG. 1. Theprocess 500 may begin at 502 by receiving an application policy relatedto an application. As noted above, an application policy may be receivedwhen a user (e.g., a system administrator) of an application hostingsystem (e.g., 110(1)) transmits a request to application policy engine122. At 504, the process 500 may include determining one or moreconditions associated with the application policy. The conditions mayspecify, for instance, when an application policy is applicable for anapplication. At 506, the process 500 may include identifying one or moreactions to be performed when one or more of the conditions aresatisfied. For example, application policy engine 122 may determine thata user's access to an application is a condition that makes theapplication policy applicable to the application. Application policyengine 122 may then identify, based on the application policy, that thedata in the application is to be encrypted using an encryption key of aparticular strength when the condition is satisfied. In someembodiments, at 508, the process 500 may include generating a mappingbetween the application and the application policy based on theconditions and the actions.

In some embodiments, application policy engine 122 may identify at leasta portion of the data in the application to be encrypted based on theconditions and actions associated with the application policy. Forinstance, application policy engine 122 may determine that a firstcondition is associated with an application policy for an applicationwhen a user accesses a first portion of the data in the application andthat a second condition is associated with the application policy P3when the user accesses a second portion of the data in the applicationthat is different from the first portion. Application policy engine 122may then identify, based on the application policy, a first action thatis to be performed when the user accesses the first portion of the datain the application and a second action to be performed when the useraccesses the second portion of the data in the application.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 600 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies, andcryptographic policies, in accordance with one embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some aspects, the process 600 of FIG. 6 may be performedby application policy engine 122 in service provider system 106 shown inFIG. 1. The process 600 may begin at 602 by receiving an applicationpolicy related to an application. At 604, the process 600 may includeidentifying a portion of the data in the application to be secured basedat least in part on the application policy. In some embodiments theprocess at 604 may include determining one or more conditions associatedwith the application policy, identifying one or more actions to beperformed when one or more of the conditions are satisfied andidentifying at least a portion of the data in application to be securedbased at least in part on the conditions and actions associated with theapplication policy. At 606, the process 600 may include determining acryptographic policy for securing at least the portion of the data inthe application based on the application policy. As noted above, acryptographic policy may specify a type of cryptographic algorithm to beused to encrypt an application or a portion thereof, the type ofencryption object (e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) to be usedto encrypt the data in the application, and the like.

In some embodiments, at 608, the process 600 may include generating amapping between the application, application policy and thecryptographic policy. For instance, and as noted above, the mapping ofan application to an application policy and a cryptographic policy mayinclude determining by the application policy engine that acryptographic policy based on a first hash function is to be applied tothe data in the application when a first condition associated with theapplication policy for the application is satisfied and that acryptographic policy based on a second hash function is to be applied tothe data in the application when a second condition associated with theapplication policy for the application is satisfied.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 700 forperforming the mapping of applications to application policies,cryptographic policies, and encryption objects, in accordance with oneembodiment of the present disclosure. In some aspects, the process 700of FIG. 7 may be performed by application policy engine 122 andapplication policy handler 124 in service provider system 106 shown inFIG. 1. The process 700 may begin at 702 by receiving an applicationpolicy related to an application. At 704, the process 700 may includedetermining a cryptographic policy for securing at least a portion ofthe data in the application based on the application policy. At 706, theprocess 700 may include acquiring an encryption object (e.g., anencryption key and/or digital certificate) for securing at least theportion of the data in the application based on the cryptographic policyand the application policy.

At 708, the process 700 may include generating a mapping between theapplication policy, the cryptographic policy, and the encryption objectfor the portion of the data in the application. For instance, and asnoted above, the mapping of an application to an application policy, acryptographic policy, and an encryption object may include determiningby the application policy engine that a cryptographic policy based on afirst hash function that uses a 160-bit hash value is to be applied tothe data in the application when a first condition is associated withthe application policy for the application is satisfied and that acryptographic policy based on a second hash function that uses a 224-bithash value is to be applied to the data in the application when a secondcondition is associated with the application policy for the applicationis satisfied.

In some embodiments, at 710, the process may include receiving a requestrelated to an application from a user of user device 102. The process at710 may further include securing the portion of the data in theapplication in accordance with the application policy, the cryptographicpolicy, and using the encryption object, in response to the request. Inan embodiment, the process at 710 may be performed by application policyhandler 124 in service provider system 106. For instance, applicationpolicy handler 124 may determine, at runtime, the appropriate securityto be applied to the data in the application by obtaining informationabout the application policy, the cryptographic policy, and theencryption object to be applied to the application from applicationpolicy engine 122. Application policy handler 124 may then secure and/orencrypt the data in the application by applying the appropriatecryptographic policy and the encryption object in accordance with theapplication policy and transmit an encrypted version of the data in theapplication to the user. The user may then access and interact with theencrypted application on user device 102.

Data Encryption Service and Customized Encryption Management

According to certain embodiments of the present disclosure, the dataencryption service described above may be included or implemented in acloud computing environment that includes separate identity domains thatare isolated from each other. Each identity domain may be viewed as alogical partition or a tenant of the cloud computing environment. In anembodiment, each such identity domain can be associated with a separatetenant, or customer, such as a different business organization. Thus, afirst customer might be a first tenant of the cloud computingenvironment, a second customer, a second tenant of the cloud computingenvironment, a third customer, a third tenant of the cloud computingenvironment, and so on.

In certain embodiments, each logical partition of the cloud computingenvironment can be one of several logical partitions that are isolatedfrom each other by identity domain management software that executes onthe hardware within the computing environment. Each such domain can beviewed as a “slice” of the shared hardware and software resources withinthe computing environment that is associated with a potentiallydifferent customer (who may pay for the privilege of using that slice).Each identity domain can include user identities and instances ofapplication software services sometimes separate executing instances ofthe same software code. The identity domain management software canenforce isolation between identity domains by preventing users from onesuch domain from accessing the service instances that are not associatedwith that domain, and by preventing service instances that areassociated with one such domain from accessing user identities that areassociated with that domain.

FIG. 8 illustrates a multi-tenant environment 800 in which a dataencryption service 806 can be implemented, according to someembodiments. As shown, multi-tenant environment 800 includes customersystems 810(1)-810(N) (collectively, customer systems 810). While notexplicitly shown in FIG. 8, customer systems 810 may be communicativelycoupled to a service provider system 806 via a communication network808. Communication network 808 may be similar to or the same ascommunication network 108 described in FIG. 1. Service provider system806 may be similar to or the same as service provider system 106described in FIG. 1. In an embodiment, service provider system 806 mayinclude a data encryption service 804 configured to provide dataencryption services for applications hosted by, managed by, or stored incustomer systems 810. These data encryption services may include, forinstance, managing application policies, cryptographic policies, andencryption objects related to applications hosted by, managed by, orstored in customer systems 502. Data encryption service 804 may be thesame as or similar to data encryption service 104 described in FIG. 1.

Customer systems 810 may represent external systems such asorganizations or third party systems that provide, manage, or host avariety of resources such as software products, applications (e.g.,cloud-based applications, enterprise applications, or any otherapplications), cloud services, various types of data (e.g., networkedfiles, directory information, databases, or the like) and otherresources. In some embodiments, a customer systems 810 may alsorepresent application hosting systems, application providers, orcloud-service providers that host applications that may be managed bythe organizations or third party systems. Although exemplary systemenvironment 800 is shown with three customer systems, any number ofcustomer systems may be supported, in other embodiments.

Customer systems 810 may be implemented or included in a computingsystem. Customer systems 810 may be implemented in hardware, firmware,software, or combinations thereof. Customer systems 810 may beimplemented in a computing device, such as a PDA, a tablet computer, alaptop computer, a desktop computer, a wearable computer, a pager, etc.Customer systems 810 can be implemented using one or more memory storagedevices and one or more processors. A memory storage device can beaccessible to the processor(s) and can include instructions storedthereon which, when executed by the processor(s), cause the processor(s)to implement one or more operations disclosed herein.

In some examples, a customer system 810 may represent an organizationcomprising multiple subsystems in which each subsystem may representvarious departments or business units within the organization. Each suchsubsystem may provide different services within the organization suchas, for example, financial services, analytics services, businessintelligence services, sales and marketing services, human resourceservices, and the like. Each of these services may in turn utilize,provide, manage and/or store different applications such as cloud-basedapplications, enterprise applications, cloud services, various types ofdata (e.g., networked files, directory information, databases, or thelike), word processors, spreadsheets, accounting applications, webbrowsers, web applications, messaging services, native applications, orany other applications.

In certain situations, a user (e.g., a system administrator) of acustomer system 810 may require to secure the data in applicationsprovided by the different subsystems in accordance with the types ofservices provided by each subsystem. For instance, a systemadministrator may be required to secure the data in financialapplications provided by a financial business unit of the customersystem differently from the data in payroll applications provided by ahuman resource department of the customer system. In one embodiment ofthe present disclosure, data encryption service 804 may be configured todetermine the appropriate encryption to be applied to the data inapplications provided by various services (subsystems) of the customersystem. For instance, data encryption service 804 can determine, for acustomer system 810(1), the appropriate encryption to be applied to thedata in an application by identifying the application policy, thecryptographic policy and the encryption objects (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be applied to the data in the application.

In certain embodiments, data encryption service 804 may provide variousinterfaces to enable a user of a customer system 810 to interact withdata encryption service 804 to utilize the services provided by the dataencryption service. In an example, the interfaces provided by dataencryption service 804 may include a request User Interface (UI) 828 anda customer specific User Interface (826). A user (e.g., a systemadministrator) of a customer system 810 can interact with request UI 828to request for data encryption services for applications managed by,hosted by, provided by, or stored in the customer system. For example,the user may interact with request UI 828 via a browser applicationexecuted by the customer system and the interaction may cause thebrowser application to generate a request to the data encryptionservice. In some examples, request UI 828 may include a log-in page (notshown in FIG. 8) that requests for log-in credentials from the user suchas, but not limited to, a customer identity, a user name and a password.

Upon successful authentication of the user, in some examples, a user mayspecify, via request UI 828, an application to be secured by the dataencryption service. For instance, the user may specify, via request UI828, that the application to be secured is an expense report applicationof customer system 810. In some examples, the user may also specifyadditional information related to the application such as theapplication name, the application version, the application identifier,and the like via request UI 828.

Upon identifying and authenticating the user of the customer system(e.g., via request UI 828) as described above, data encryption service804 may provide a customer specific UI 826 to the user of the customersystem. Customer specific UI 826 may be configured to providecustomer-specific information regarding application policies andencryption objects related to applications managed by the customersystem to the user of the customer system. The customer-specificinformation may be obtained, for instance, by the data encryptionservice from information stored in data stores 810. In another example,data encryption service 804 may be configured to determine, at run time,the appropriate customer-specific information (comprising a set of oneor more policies and a set of one or more encryption objects) to provideto the user of a customer system via customer specific UI 826 based onthe information associated with the application received via request UI828. For instance, data encryption service 804 may be configured toautomatically determine a set of application policies and encryptionobjects that can be applied to an application based on the type of theapplication (e.g., expense report application) that is required to besecured. In other embodiments, data encryption service 804 may directlyacquire the customer-specific information from one or more data storesof the customer system.

In an embodiment, a user of a customer system can utilize customerspecific UI 826 to select the appropriate application policy andencryption object to be applied to an application. In some examples,customer specific UI 826 may include a policy selection User Interface(UI) 830, an encryption object selection UI 832, and a notification UserInterface (UI) 834. Policy selection UI 830 may be configured to provideapplication policies related to applications hosted by the customersystem. A user of customer system 810 may utilize policy selection UI830 to select an application policy to be applied to an application.FIG. 9 is an exemplary illustration of the manner in which a user mayinteract with a policy selection UI to select an application policy foran application. As noted above, an application policy may specifyinformation regarding the manner in which an application or portions ofthe application and/or data accessed by an application are to besecured. For example, an application policy may specify a set ofconditions that indicate when an application policy for an applicationis applicable and a set of actions that are to be performed when one ormore of the conditions are satisfied.

Encryption object selection UI 832 may be configured to provideencryption objects that can be used to secure the data in an applicationin accordance with a selected application policy. For instance, in anembodiment, a user of a customer system 810 may select an appropriateencryption object (e.g., encryption key and/or certificate) to beapplied to the data of an application based on the application policyselected via the policy selection UI 830 as described above. FIG. 10 isan exemplary illustration of the manner in which a user may interactwith an encryption object selection UI to select an encryption objectfor an application.

In some embodiments, customer specific UI 826 may also include anotification UI 834. Notification UI 834 may be configured to providenotifications regarding applications managed by a customer system to auser of the customer system. These notifications may include forinstance, the rollover date for an encryption object (e.g., key) used tosecure an application, the expiration date of the encryption object, therenewal date of the encryption object, and so on. FIG. 11 is anexemplary illustration of a notification UI provided by the dataencryption service.

The above discussion described an exemplary interaction by a user of acustomer system 810 (e.g., 810(1)) with the various user interfaces 828,830, 832, and 834 provided by the data encryption service. It is to beappreciated that, in other instances, when a user of a second anddifferent customer system (e.g., 810(2)) interacts with the dataencryption service to utilize the services provided by the dataencryption service, the data encryption service may be configured toprovide a different instance of the customer-specific UI (comprising apolicy selection UI, an encryption object selection UI, and anotification UI) that relates to applications managed by the secondcustomer system, to the user of the second customer system.

For instance, in some embodiments, customer systems 810 can correspondto different pharmaceutical manufactures (organizations) that executeeach of their clinical trials through their slice of a clinical trialsservice that is responsible for handling clinical trials that thepharmaceutical manufacturer is conducting. Each manufacturer could havedifferent encryption requirements and different data to be encrypted.For instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act(HIPAA) may require that such data be HIPAA compliant (e.g., encryptedusing at least an AES-256 or higher symmetric key algorithm).

Each manufacturer could have several drugs in clinical trials, with eachdrug being run through several hundred doctors. Each doctor in turn,could have several hundred patients participating in the clinical trial.In such a deployment, each doctor needs to be able to access and viewtrial information only for their patients. A doctor should not be ableto view details of another doctor's patients or clinical trials forother drugs. Similarly, the manufacturer should only be able to viewinformation about the results of the clinical trial but not individualpatient details as that would be governed by government regulations asappropriate to the country where the trial is in effect.

In such an example, a doctor wishing to see the data of their patientsshould be granted access to the key encrypting information correspondingto those patients. Another doctor should not be granted access to thatkey. The manufacturer should not get access to keys that encrypt apatient's personal information. That is, an administrator or cloudvendor operating the clinical trials system should not have access toany of the above data and not have access to any of these keys.

In some examples, the customer systems that interact with the dataencryption service may correspond to different customer systems. Suchcustomer systems could include, for instance, infrastructure serviceslike a Load Balancer system or a File storage system in parallel,storage services that have different application information indifferent formats, SaaS services (e.g., a CRM suite) or abenefits/compensation management service.

The disclosed data encryption service thus provides a centralizedlocation for users of different customer systems to effectively managethe data encryption requirements of the various applications managed bythe customer systems. For instance, by interacting with the variousinterfaces provided by customer specific UI 826, users of the customersystems can provide and/or select the appropriate customer-specificinformation related to application policies and encryption objects to beapplied to applications managed by the customer systems. In anembodiment, the application policies and the encryption objects selectedand/or provided by the users of the customer systems may be stored inone or more customer-specific data stores by the data encryptionservice. Additional details of the types of information stored incustomer-specific data stores 820 is discussed in detail below.

In some embodiments, upon receiving the selection of an applicationpolicy and an encryption object related to an application from a user ofa customer system as described above, data encryption service 804 may beconfigured to determine the appropriate encryption to be applied to thedata in the application based on the application policy and theencryption object. For example, data encryption service 804 may beconfigured to first identify one or more conditions associated with theselected application policy. As noted above, the conditions associatedwith the application policy may specify when the application policy forthe application is applicable. For instance, application policy engine822 in data encryption service 804 may be configured to determine that afirst condition is associated with the application policy for theapplication when a user accesses a first portion of the data in theapplication and that a second condition is associated with theapplication policy when the user accesses a second portion of the datain the application that is different from the first portion. Applicationpolicy engine 822 may then identify, based on the application policy, afirst action that is to be performed when the user accesses the firstportion of the data in the application and a second action to beperformed when the user accesses the second portion of the data in theapplication. For instance, the actions may specify that the data in theapplication is to be encrypted using an encryption key of a particularstrength depending on whether the user accesses the first portion or thesecond portion of the data in the application. In some embodiments,application policy engine 822 may be configured to create a mappingbetween the application and the application policy for the customersystem and store the mapping in customer-specific data store 820.

Application policy engine 822 in data encryption service 804 may then beconfigured to determine a cryptographic policy to be applied to encryptthe data in the application in accordance with the application policy.For example, and as noted above, application policy engine 822 may beconfigured to identify, based on the application policy, that the firstportion of the data in the application is to be encrypted using a firsttype of cryptographic policy and that the second portion of the data inthe application is to be encrypted using a second type of cryptographicpolicy. In some embodiments, application policy engine 822 may beconfigured to interact with cryptographic policies data store 818 toretrieve the appropriate cryptographic policy to be applied to the datain the application or portions thereof, based on the application policy.Cryptographic policies data store 818 may be the same as or similar tocryptographic policies data store 118 described in FIG. 1. For instance,application policy engine 822 may be configured to determine, based onthe application policy, that the portion of the data in the applicationthat relates to compensation and benefits is to be encrypted using anencryption algorithm that uses a signing algorithm, whereas the portionof the data in the application that relates to sales data analytics isto be encrypted using an encryption algorithm that uses an asymmetricencryption algorithm. In some embodiments, application policy engine 822may be configured to create a mapping between an application, itsapplication policy and the cryptographic policy to be used to encryptthe data in the application and store the mapping in in thecustomer-specific data store 820.

In some embodiments, application policy engine 822 may be configured todetermine the appropriate encryption object (e.g., encryption key and/orcertificate) to be acquired for encrypting the data in the applicationor portions thereof, in accordance with the cryptographic policy and theapplication policy. For instance, application policy engine 822 may beconfigured to determine the appropriate encryption object to be appliedto the data in the application based on the encryption object selectedby a user (e.g., a system administrator) of customer system 810, viaencryption object selection UI 832. Or, for example, application policyengine 822 may be configured to retrieve the appropriate encryptionobject from encryption objects data store 816. Encryption objects datastore 816 may be the same as or similar to encryption objects data store116 described in FIG. 1.

For instance, application policy engine 822 may be configured todetermine, based on the cryptographic policy and the application policyfor an application, that an encryption key of 128 bit strength isrequired to be used to encrypt the portion of the data in theapplication that relates to compensation and benefits whereas an RSA keyof 1024 bit strength is required to be used to encrypt the portion ofthe data in the application that relates to sales data analytics. Insome embodiments, application policy engine 822 may be configured tocreate a mapping between an application, its application policy, itscryptographic policy and the encryption object to be used to secure thedata in the application and store the mapping in customer-specific datastore 820.

In some embodiments, service provider system 806 may comprise one ormore data stores 812. Data stores 812 may include an encryption objectsdata store 816, a cryptographic policies data store 818, an applicationinformation data store 814, and one or more customer-specific datastores 820. Encryption objects data store 816 may store a variety ofencryption objects such as encryption keys and/or certificates that canbe applied to secure the data in the applications hosted by, providedby, or stored in customer systems 810. Cryptographic policies data store818 may store a variety of cryptographic policies related to theapplications hosted by, provided by, or stored in customer systems 810.As noted above, cryptographic policies may specify, for instance, thetypes of cryptographic algorithms that can be applied to encrypt thedata in an application or a portion thereof, the types of encryptionobjects (e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) to be used toencrypt the data in the application, and so on. Encryption objects datastore 816 and cryptographic policies data store 818 may be the same orsimilar to encryption objects data store 116 and cryptographic policiesdata store 118 described in FIG. 1. Application information data store814 may be configured to store information related to applicationshosted by, provided by, or stored in customer systems 810. Thisinformation may include, for instance, the application name, theapplication identifier, the application type (e.g., email application,word processing application, finance application, and the like).Application information data store 814 may be similar to or the same asapplication information data store 114 described in FIG. 1.

Customer-specific data stores 820 may be configured to storecustomer-specific information related to applications hosted by,accessed by or stored in customer systems 810. The customer-specificinformation may include, for example, application policies,cryptographic policies, and encryption objects related to applicationshosted by, accessed by or stored in the customer systems. For instance,customer-specific data stores 820 may be configured to storecustomer-specific information associated with applications from a firstcustomer system 810(1) in a first data store 820(1), customer-specificinformation associated with applications from a second customer system810(2) in a second data store 820(2), customer-specific informationassociated with applications from a third customer system 810(3) in athird data store 820(3), and so on. The customer-specific data storesmay be a part of data encryption service 804, in some embodiments, ormay be stored in one or more data repositories accessible to the serviceprovider system, in other embodiments. Although exemplary systemenvironment 800 shows three customer-specific data stores, any number ofdata stores may be supported, in other embodiments. FIG. 12 is anexemplary illustration of the different types of customer-specificinformation that can be stored in a customer-specific data store, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

In some aspects of the present disclosure, customer-specific data stores820 may also be configured to store customer-specific data related toapplications hosted by or accessed by different subsystems of customersystems 802. For instance, customer-specific data stores 820 may beconfigured to store customer-specific information associated withapplications from a first subsystem, a second subsystem, a thirdsubsystem, and so on of the first customer system 810(1) in a first datastore 820(1). Similarly, customer-specific data stores 820 may beconfigured to store customer-specific data associated with applicationsfrom different subsystems of the second customer system 810(2) in asecond data store 820(2) and customer-specific data associated withapplications from different subsystems of the third customer system810(3) in a third data store 820(3), and so on. FIG. 13 is an exemplaryillustration of the different types of customer-specific informationrelated to applications from various subsystems of a customer systemthat can be stored in a customer-specific data store, in accordance withan embodiment of the present disclosure.

Application policy handler 824 be configured to perform the encryptionof an application at runtime based, for example, on a request receivedfrom a user of user device 802. For instance, application policy handler824 may determine, at runtime, the appropriate encryption to be appliedto the data in the application by interacting with application policyengine 822 to determine the appropriate application policy, thecryptographic policy, and the encryption objects to be applied to theapplication. Application policy handler 824 may perform the encryptionof the data in the application, at run time, based on the applicationpolicy, the cryptographic policy, and the encryption object and transmitan encrypted version of the data in the application to the user on userdevice 820 via application data service 836. Application data service836 may be the same or similar to application data service 126 discussedin relation to FIG. 1.

FIG. 9 is an exemplary illustration of a policy selection user interface(UI) provided by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, a user (e.g., asystem administrator) of a customer system 810 can interact with policyselection UI 830 to select a policy to be applied to an application tobe secured by the data encryption service. In some examples, policyselection UI 830 may display information related to the request that wasreceived by data encryption service 804 via request UI 828. Thisinformation may include, for example, a username of the user of thecustomer system who made the request, an identity of the customersystem, a role of the user who made request, a request identifier and adate that the request was made. Policy selection UI 830 may also includea drop down menu 902 comprising various types of application policiesthat may be applied to an application. The user may select a particularpolicy to be applied to an application by selecting a policy from dropdown menu 902. In some examples, the user may also select a defaultpolicy to apply to the application via policy selection UI 830.

FIG. 10 is an exemplary illustration of an encryption object selectionUI provided by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, a user (e.g., asystem administrator) of a customer system 810 can interact withencryption object selection UI 832 to select a particular type ofencryption object to be applied to the data in an application hosted by,provided by, or accessed by the customer system via a browserapplication executed by the customer system. In some examples,encryption object selection UI 832 may display information related to arequest that was received by the data encryption service 804 via requestUI 828. As noted above, this information may include, for example, theusername of the user of the customer system who made the request, theidentity of the customer system, the role of the user who made request,a request identifier and the date that the request was made. In someexamples, the information may also include an application policyselected by the user via policy selection UI 830. Encryption objectselection UI 832 may include a drop down menu 1002 comprising varioustypes of encryption objects such as encryption keys and/or certificatesthat may be applied to the data in an application by the user. The usermay select a particular encryption object to be applied to the data inan application by selecting an encryption object from drop down menu1002.

FIG. 11 is an exemplary illustration of a notification UI provided bythe data encryption service, in accordance with an embodiment of thepresent disclosure. In an embodiment, a user (e.g., a systemadministrator) of a customer system 810 can interact with notificationUI 832 to receive notifications related to applications managed by thecustomer system 810 from the data encryption service. Such notificationsmay include, for instance, the rollover date for an encryption object(e.g., key) used to secure an application, the expiration date of theencryption object, the renewal date of the encryption object, and so on.

Such notifications may include notifications for a mismatch in policy.For example, a cryptography policy declared by the administrator of thecustomer system might require a certain algorithm, key strength,encryption mode. If this is not supported by the customer system, theadministrator may be notified to change the policy. In some examples, anadministrator in the customer's identity domain may want their ITdepartment to control how soon before expiry of an encryption objectthat they would like to be notified. This “period before expiry” mayvary from one customer to another. In addition, in some embodiments,certain encryption keys could be created in the customer system with afixed lease or validity. When the key is close to its expiry time or itslease is about to get over, the administrator of the customer system maybe interested in knowing this in advance, so that any of the applicationoperations like encryption and the like that rely on the key are notimpacted. This can help the administrator plan ahead and rollover thekey or provision another key.

FIG. 12 is an exemplary illustration of the different types ofcustomer-specific information that can be stored in a customer-specificdata store by the data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. In an embodiment, thecustomer-specific information may include, for a plurality ofapplications managed by a customer system, the application policies,cryptographic policies, and encryption objects related to theapplications. In some embodiments, the customer-specific information mayalso include application mapping information. The application mappinginformation may include, for instance, information that maps anapplication to its application policy, cryptographic policy, andencryption object. As noted above, customer-specific data stores 820 maybe configured to store customer-specific information associated withapplications from a first customer system 810(1) in a first data store820(1), customer-specific information associated with applications froma second customer system 810(2) in a second data store 820(2),customer-specific information associated with applications from a thirdcustomer system 810(3) in a third data store 820(3), and so on.

FIG. 13 is an exemplary illustration of the different types ofcustomer-specific information related to applications from varioussubsystems of a customer system that can be stored in acustomer-specific data store by the data encryption service, inaccordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. As noted above,the customer-specific information may include, for example, applicationpolicies, cryptographic policies, and encryption objects related toapplications hosted by, accessed by or stored in the customer system. Insome embodiments, the customer-specific information may includeapplication mapping information. The application mapping information mayinclude, for instance, information that associates the applications toapplication policies, cryptographic policies, and encryption objects. Inthe embodiment depicted in FIG. 13, customer-specific data stores 820may be configured to store customer-specific information associated withapplications from various subsystems of a first customer system 810(1)in a first data store 820(1), customer-specific information associatedwith applications from various subsystems of a second customer system810(2) in a second data store 820(2), customer-specific informationassociated with applications from various subsystems of a third customersystem 810(3) in a third data store 820(3), and so on.

FIGS. 14-16 illustrate example flow diagrams showing processes 1400,1500, and 1600 for performing customized data encryption, in accordancewith an embodiment of the present disclosure. The processes areillustrated as logical flow diagrams, each operation of which representsa sequence of operations that can be implemented in hardware, computerinstructions, or a combination thereof. In the context of computerinstructions, the operations represent computer-executable instructionsstored on one or more computer-readable storage media that, whenexecuted by one or more processors, perform the recited operations.Generally, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs,objects, components, data structures, and the like that performparticular functions or implement particular data types. The order inwhich the operations are described is not intended to be construed as alimitation, and any number of the described operations can be combinedin any order and/or in parallel to implement the processes.

Additionally, some, any, or all of the processes may be performed underthe control of one or more computer systems configured with executableinstructions and may be implemented as code (e.g., executableinstructions, one or more computer programs, or one or moreapplications) executing collectively on one or more processors, byhardware, or combinations thereof. As noted above, the code may bestored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in the formof a computer program comprising a plurality of instructions executableby one or more processors. The computer-readable storage medium may benon-transitory.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1400 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with one embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some aspects, the process 1400 of FIG. 14 may beperformed by modules 826, 828, 830, 832 and 834 of data encryptionservice 804 shown in FIG. 8. The process 1400 may begin at 1402 when arequest related to an application is received from a first customersystem. For instance, a user of a first customer system may submit viarequest UI 828, a request to the data encryption service to secure anapplication managed by the first customer system. Responsive to therequest, at 1404, the process 1400 may include providing to the firstcustomer system, one or more application policies related to theapplication. As noted above, in an embodiment, the data encryptionservice may provide the application policies related to the applicationvia policy selection UI 830.

In some embodiments, at 1406, the process 1400 may include receivingfrom the user, a selection of an application policy. For instance, auser may interact with policy selection UI 830 to determine theappropriate application policy to be applied to the application. At1408, the process 1400 may include determining the encryption to beapplied to secure the data in the application based on the applicationpolicy. For instance, application policy engine 822 may determine theencryption to be applied to the data in the application by determiningthe appropriate cryptographic policy and encryption object (e.g.,encryption key and/or certificate) to be applied to the applicationbased on the selected application policy. For example, informationrelated to the cryptographic policy and the encryption object (e.g.,encryption key and/or certificate) may be obtained from data stores 812.In some examples, at 1408, the process 1400 may include storing, in afirst customer data store, encryption information related to theapplication. The encryption information may include, for instance, theapplication policy, cryptographic policy and the encryption objectassociated with the application.

FIG. 15 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1500 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with another embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some aspects, the process 1500 of FIG. 15 may beperformed by modules 826, 828, 830, 832 and 834 of data encryptionservice 804 shown in FIG. 8. The process 1500 may begin at 1502 when arequest related to an application is received from a first customersystem. For instance, the request may be a request from a user of thefirst customer to secure an application. At 1504, the process mayinclude identifying an application policy related to the application.The application policy may be identified, in an embodiment, byproviding, to the user of the first customer system, a plurality ofapplication policies related to the application via a policy selectionUI 830 and receiving a selection of an application policy from the user.At 1506, the process 1500 may include determining a condition associatedwith the application policy that specifies when an application policyfor an application is applicable. At 1508, the process 1500 may includeidentifying, based on the application policy and the condition, anaction to be performed when the condition is satisfied.

For instance, the processes at 1506 and 1508 may determine that anapplication policy P1 for an application A1 is applicable when a useraccesses the application A1. Thus, processes 1506 and 1508 may determinethat the user's access to the application A1 is a condition (C1) thatmakes the application policy P1 applicable to application A1. Processes1506 and 1508 may then identify, based on the application policy P1,that the data in the application is to be encrypted using an encryptionkey of a particular strength when the condition C1 is satisfied. Thus,processes 1506 and 1508 may determine that the ‘action’ to be performedis the encryption of the data in the application using an encryption keyof a particular strength when the user accesses the application.

In some embodiments, at 1510, the process 1500 includes generating amapping between the application and the application policy based on thecondition and the action. At 1512, the process 1500 may include storing,in a first customer system, a mapping between the application policy andthe application.

FIG. 16 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1600 forperforming customized data encryption for an application by the dataencryption service, in accordance with another embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In some aspects, the process 1600 of FIG. 16 may beperformed by modules 826, 828, 830, 832 and 834 of data encryptionservice 804 shown in FIG. 8. The process 1600 may begin at 1602 when arequest related to an application is received from a first customersystem. For instance, the request may be a request from a user of thefirst customer to secure an application. At 1604, the process 1600 mayinclude identifying an application policy related to the application.The application policy may be identified, in an embodiment, byproviding, to the user of the first customer system, a plurality ofapplication policies related to the application via a policy selectionUI 830 and receiving a selection of an application policy from the user.In some embodiments, at 1606, the process may include providing one ormore encryption objects for securing the data in the application. Theencryption objects may, in an example, be provided to a user of thefirst customer system via an encryption object selection UI 832. At1608, the process 1600 may include receiving a selection of anencryption object from the user via the encryption object selection UI.

In some embodiments, at 1610, the process 1600 may include determiningan appropriate cryptographic policy to be applied for securing the datain the application based on the identified application policy and theselected encryption object. At 1612, the process 1600 may includegenerating a mapping between the application policy, the cryptographicpolicy and the encryption object. In some embodiments, at 1614, theprocess 1600 may include storing, in a first customer data store, themapping between the application policy, the cryptographic policy and theencryption object.

Monitoring and Alert Services and Data Encryption Management

In accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure, thedisclosed data encryption service may be configured to providemonitoring and alert services related to encryption objects (e.g.,encryption keys and certificates) managed by the data encryptionservice. The monitoring and alert services may include transmittingalerts related to the encryption objects via various communicationchannels when one or more conditions related to the encryption objectsare satisfied. The disclosed alert and monitoring service may beutilized by application providers, application hosting systems, cloudservice providers, customer systems or third party (external) systemsthat host, manage, provide, and/or store applications. As noted above,applications may include, without limitation, cloud-based applications,enterprise applications, cloud services, various types of data (e.g.,networked files, directory information, databases, or the like), wordprocessors, spreadsheets, accounting applications, web browsers, webapplications, messaging services, native applications, or any otherapplications.

As further noted above, these applications may utilize differentencryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and certificates) to securetheir information. Managing the encryption objects across differentapplications can be challenging because oftentimes these encryptionobjects have to be periodically renewed and/or updated in accordancewith different schedules, application policies, and encryption keypolicies applicable to each application. If the encryption objects arenot renewed and/or updated appropriately, the encryption objects may nolonger function correctly and/or may lead to security warnings that theencryption objects are out of compliance. For instance, different typesof encryption objects may be associated with different renewalprocedures. For example, encryption objects such as digital certificatescan include those used in hostile zones (e.g., externally) signed by athird party certificate authority, or those used internally signed by aninternal issuing authority. Embodiments of the present disclosureaddress these challenges by providing a monitoring and alert servicethat can be configured to monitor the lifecycle of the encryptionobjects by transmitting alerts related to the encryption objects viavarious communication channels, to the users of the data encryptionservice. Additional details of the operations performed by the disclosedalert and monitoring service are described in detail below.

FIG. 17 illustrates an environment 1700 of a monitoring and alertservice provided by a data encryption service, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. As shown, environment 1700includes application hosting systems 1710(1)-1710(N) (collectively,application hosting systems 1710). While not explicitly shown in FIG.17, application hosting systems 1710 may be communicatively coupled to aservice provider system 1706 via a communication network 1708.Communication network 1708 may be similar to or the same ascommunication network 108 or 808 described in FIGS. 1 and 8,respectively. Service provider system 1706 may be similar to or the sameas service provider system 106 or 806 described in FIGS. 1 and 8,respectively.

As described in relation to FIG. 1, application hosting systems 1710 mayrepresent external systems such as organizations, third party systems,or cloud-service providers that provide, manage, or host a variety ofresources such as software products, applications (e.g., cloud-basedapplications, enterprise applications, or any other applications), cloudservices, various types of data (e.g., networked files, directoryinformation, databases, or the like) and other resources. Applicationhosting systems 1710 may be implemented or included in a computingsystem. Application hosting systems 1710 may be implemented in hardware,firmware, software, or combinations thereof. Application hosting systems1710 may be implemented in a computing device, such as a PDA, a tabletcomputer, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a wearable computer, apager, etc. Application hosting systems 1710 can be implemented usingone or more memory storage devices and one or more processors. A memorystorage device can be accessible to the processor(s) and can includeinstructions stored thereon which, when executed by the processor(s),cause the processor(s) to implement one or more operations disclosedherein.

In an embodiment, service provider system 1706 may include a dataencryption service 1704 and one or more data stores 1712. Dataencryption service 1704 may be configured to provide data encryptionservices for users of the service provider system. These users mayinclude, for instance, users (e.g., system administrators) ofapplication hosting systems 1710. The users may also include users ofuser devices 1702 that utilize applications hosted by the applicationhosting systems. As noted above, these data encryption services mayinclude, for instance, managing application policies, cryptographicpolicies, and encryption objects related to applications hosted by,managed by, or stored in application hosting systems 1710. Dataencryption service 1704 may be the same as or similar to data encryptionservice 104 or 804 described in FIGS. 1 and 8, respectively. Data stores1712 may be the same as or similar to data stores 112 described inrelation to FIG. 1. In an embodiment, data stores 1712 may include anapplication information data store 1714, an encryption object data store1716, a cryptographic policies data store 1718, and an applicationmapping information data store 1720.

In an embodiment, data encryption service 1704 may include anapplication policy engine 1722 and an application policy handler 1724.Application policy engine 1722 may be configured to receive anapplication policy for an application from application hosting systems1710 and identify portions of the data in the application that have tobe secured based on the application policy. For instance, applicationpolicy engine 1722 may be configured to identify, based on theapplication policy, that a first portion of the data in the applicationcomprises information related to compensation and benefits and that asecond portion of the data in the application comprises informationrelated to sales data analytics.

Application policy engine 1722 may then be configured to determine acryptographic policy for securing the data in the application oridentified portions of the data in the application, based on theapplication policy. For instance, application policy engine 1722 may beconfigured to interact with cryptographic policies data store 1718 toretrieve the appropriate cryptographic policy to apply to theapplication or portions thereof, based on the application policy. Forinstance, continuing with the example of a financial applicationdiscussed above, application policy engine 1722 may be configured todetermine, based on the application policy, that a portion of the datain the application that relates to compensation and benefits has to beencrypted using an encryption algorithm that uses a signing algorithm,whereas a portion of the data in the application that relates to salesdata analytics has to be encrypted using an encryption algorithm thatuses an asymmetric encryption algorithm.

In some embodiments, application policy engine 1722 may be configured todetermine the appropriate encryption objects (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be acquired for encrypting the data in theapplication or portions thereof, in accordance with the cryptographicpolicy and the application policy. For instance, application policyengine 1722 may be configured to determine, based on the cryptographicpolicy and the application policy, that an encryption key, E_(K), of 128bit strength is required to be used to encrypt the portion of the datain the application that relates to compensation and benefits whereas anRSA key, E_(K), of 1024 bit strength is required to be used to encryptthe portion of the data in the application that relates to sales dataanalytics. Application policy engine 1722 may then be configured toacquire the appropriate encryption key for securing the data in theapplication or portions thereof. For instance, application policy engine1722 may transmit a request to encryption objects data store 1716 toretrieve the appropriate encryption key from encryption objects datastore 1716. If application policy engine 1722 determines that theencryption object (e.g., encryption key and/or certificate) is notavailable in encryption objects data store 1716, then in someembodiments, application policy engine 1722 may be configured togenerate the appropriate encryption object to be used to secure the datain the application or portions thereof and store the generatedencryption object in the encryption objects data store. In someembodiments, the encryption objects may be stored in application hostingsystems 1710 and application policy engine 1722 may also be configuredto acquire the relevant encryption objects to encrypt the data in theapplication from the application hosting systems 1710.

In certain embodiments, application policy engine 1722 may be configuredto create a mapping between an application, its application policy, itscryptographic policy and the encryption object (e.g., encryption keysand/or certificates) to be used to secure the data in the application.An example of a mapping of an application to its application policy,cryptographic policy, and encryption object is described in relation toFIG. 4. In an embodiment, the mapping of information betweenapplications, application policies, cryptographic policies andencryption objects is stored in application mapping information datastore 1720.

Application policy handler 1724 may be configured to perform theencryption of the data in an application at runtime based, for example,on a request received from a user of user device 1702. For instance,application policy handler 1724 may determine, at runtime, theappropriate encryption to be applied to the data in the application byinteracting with application policy engine 1722 to determine theappropriate application policy, the cryptographic policy, and theencryption objects to be applied to the data in the application.Application policy handler 1724 may then perform the encryption of thedata in the application, at run time, based on the application policy,the cryptographic policy, and the encryption object and transmit anencrypted version of the application to the user on user device 1702 viaapplication data service 1736. Application data service 1736 may be thesame or similar to application data service 126 described in relation toFIG. 1.

In accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure, dataencryption service 1704 may be configured to provide alert andmonitoring services related to encryption objects to the users of thedata encryption service. The alert and monitoring service may beconfigured to provide alerts related to the encryption objects when oneor more conditions related to the encryption objects are satisfied andtransmit the alerts to the users of the data encryption service via oneor more communication channels. For instance, the alert and monitoringservice can be configured to monitor the lifecycle of encryption objects(e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) for applications hosted byapplication hosting systems.

In some embodiments, the alert and monitoring service may be configuredto trigger alerts based on the expiration dates of the encryptionobjects. For example, the alert and monitoring service may be configuredto define a reminder event at predetermined time intervals relative toan expiration date, a renewal date, or a rollover date associated withan encryption object. In some embodiments, in response to detecting analert event, the alert and monitoring service can be configured totransmit the alert over various communication channels as specified bythe application policy. Communication channels can include, withoutlimitation, email, Instant Messaging (IM), Short Message Service (SMS),Multimedia Message Service (MMS) Application-to-Application messaging,and the like.

In some embodiments, in addition to monitoring the lifecycle ofencryption objects, the alert and monitoring service may also beconfigured to perform the periodic maintenance of the encryptionobjects. For example, encryption keys are periodically rolled over(e.g., per corporate or governance policies). Key rollover includes notjust updating keys, but also decrypting data that uses those keys andthen encrypting the data using the updated key. As such, the process ofkey rollover may be time consuming. By providing periodic alerts, thedisclosed alert and monitoring service can allocate sufficient time toadministrators to rollover keys without interrupting service.

In an embodiment, the alert and monitoring service may be provided byone or more modules of data encryption service 1704. These modules mayinclude an encryption object metadata extraction engine 1738, amonitoring and alert engine 1740, and an alert User Interface (UI) 1742.These modules may include or be provided using one or more computersand/or servers which may be general purpose computers, specializedserver computers, server farms, server clusters, or any otherappropriate arrangement and/or combination. The various modules of thedata encryption service are meant for illustrative purposes only and arenot intended to limit the scope of embodiments of the presentdisclosure. Alternative embodiments may include more or fewer modulesthan those shown in FIG. 17.

Encryption object metadata extraction engine 1738 may be configured toidentify one or more encryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/orcertificates) associated with an application and extract metadatainformation from the encryption objects. In some examples, metadatainformation may represent non-secure information related to theencryption objects. The metadata information for an encryption objectcan include various information related to the encryption object suchas, for example, information related to attributes of the encryptionobject. For example, an encryption object may have multiple associatedattributes such as a name of the encryption object, an activation dateof the encryption object, an expiration date of the encryption object, asize of the encryption object, user groups associated with theencryption object, a version of the encryption object, a roll over dateof the encryption object, a renewal date of the encryption object and soon. In some embodiments, the values of these attributes may be stored aspart of the metadata information for that encryption object.

In some examples, metadata information may also include, withoutlimitation, when the encryption object can be made available for use,when the encryption object should be revoked from use by users of theencryption object, the number of days that the encryption object will bemade available before it automatically rolls over into a new version ofthat encryption object, and the like. In some embodiments, the metadatainformation may be derived from information stored in the applicationpolicy related to the application.

Encryption object metadata extraction engine 1738 may then be configuredto identify one or more attributes associated with the encryptionobjects based on the extracted metadata information. For instance, in anembodiment, encryption object metadata extraction engine 1738 may beconfigured to identify attributes such as a name of the encryptionobject, an activation date of the encryption object, an expiration dateof the encryption object, a size of the encryption object, user groupsassociated with the encryption object, a version of the encryptionobject, a roll over date of the encryption object, a renewal date of theencryption object and so on from the extracted metadata information.

By identifying and/or exposing attributes related to encryption objectsthat represent only non-secure information related to the encryptionobjects, the disclosed alert and monitoring service enables secureand/or private information related to the encryption objects to beprotected from unwanted actions of unauthorized users who wish toutilize the services of the data encryption service. Such actions mayinclude, for instance, the unauthorized use, disclosure, disruptionand/or modification of secure information related to the encryptionobjects by unauthorized users of the system. Secure information mayinclude, for instance, a key length and/or an encryption strengthrelated to an encryption key. Secure information may include, forexample, a digital signature of a digital (security) certificate, aprivate key used to sign into the certificate, a certificate signaturealgorithm used for encryption, and so on.

Upon identifying the attributes as described above, monitoring and alertengine 1740 may be configured to monitor the identified attributes. Insome examples, monitoring and alert engine 1740 may be configured tomonitor the attributes by generating a set of rules that may be appliedto the attributes. In other examples, monitoring and alert engine 1740may be configured to receive a definition of the rules from a user(e.g., a system administrator) of the data encryption service. The rulesdefine a set of one or more conditions that can be applied on theattributes which when satisfied, can trigger the generation of an alertrelated to the attributes. For example, monitoring and alert engine 1740could generate and/or receive a definition for a rule for an attribute,such as a roll over date, for an encryption key. The rule could specifya condition that indicates that the encryption key has to be rolled over(i.e., a new key has to be created) if the age of the encryption key isgreater than a pre-determined value. In other examples, monitoring andalert engine 1740 could generate a rule that specifies that anencryption object should be revoked from use by users of the encryptionobject after a pre-specified number of days, a rule that specifies thenumber of days that an encryption object should be made available beforeit automatically rolls over into a new version of that encryptionobject, and so on. The monitoring and alert engine 1740 may beconfigured to execute the set of rules on a periodic basis, atpre-determined intervals of time. The pre-determined intervals of timecan be configured by an administrator of the data encryption service orbe automatically determined by the data encryption service, in alternateembodiments.

Monitoring and alert engine 1740 may then be configured to generate analert when one or more conditions specified by the rules are satisfiedand transmit the alert to a user of the service provider system. Forinstance, the user may be a system administrator of application hostingsystem 1710 that hosts the application that uses the encryption object.In some embodiments, the alert generated by monitoring and alert engine1740 may be transmitted to a user via alert UI 1742. For instance, auser (e.g., a system administrator) of application hosting system 1710may access the alert UI via a browser application executed by theapplication hosting system to view alerts related to the encryptionobjects for applications hosted by, provided by, or managed by theapplication hosting system. For example, an alert triggered bymonitoring and alert engine 1740 for the expiration of an encryptionobject such as an encryption key and/or a certificate can includeoptions to renew the key or the certificate. In certain examples,monitoring and alert engine 1740 may also be configured to generatealerts when an encryption object is found to be in violation of anapplication policy defined for an application associated with theencryption object.

In some embodiments, the alert transmitted by monitoring and alertengine 1740 may include a “one click” renewal option which sends arequest to the local issuing authority (e.g., system administrator ofthe application hosting system) to issue a renewed encryption object. Insome embodiments, where the certificate issuing authority is a thirdparty system, a “one click” renewal option can send a renewal request tothe third party issuing authority through the alert UI interface.Similarly, monitoring and alert engine 1740 may trigger an alert forencryption key expiration that can include a “one click” roll-overoption, which automatically generates a new encryption key, decrypts thedata using the expiring encryption key, and encrypts the data with thenew encryption key.

In some embodiments, monitoring and alert engine 1740 may transmit thealerts to the users of the service provider system over communicationnetwork 1708. The alerts may be transmitted over any communicationchannel using various applications such as Internet-related apps,e-mail, short message service (SMS) applications, and may use variousother communication protocols.

FIG. 18 depicts an environment 1800 in which the alert and monitoringservice of the service provider system described in FIG. 17 can beimplemented, in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.In an embodiment, the alert and monitoring service can be implemented asa logical technology stack that includes a secure information data layer1802, a non-secure metadata information extraction data layer 1814, anda monitoring and alert data layer 1818. These data layers can beimplemented using hardware, software, or a combination thereof. Secureinformation data layer 1802 may be configured to provide access tosecure information related to applications provided by, hosted by, ormanaged by external systems 1822. In an embodiment, secure informationdata layer 1802 may be configured to store the secure information in oneor more data stores 1804. In an example, data stores 1804 may include anapplication information data store 1806, an encryption objects datastore 1808, a cryptographic policy data store 1810, and an applicationmapping information data store 1812. Application information data store1806, encryption objects data store 1808, cryptographic policy datastore 1810, and application mapping information data store 1812 may bethe same or similar to data stores 114, 116, 118, and 120 described inFIG. 2. As such, secure information stored in data stores 1804 mayinclude, for instance, information about applications, information aboutencryption objects (e.g., encryption keys and/or certificates) used bythe applications, information about cryptographic policies used toencrypt the applications and application mapping information.Application mapping information may include, for instance, informationthat associates an application to its application policy, itscryptographic policy, and its encryption object.

Non-secure metadata information extraction data layer 1814 may beconfigured to extract metadata information related to the encryptionobjects from data stores 1804 and identify one or more attributesassociated with the encryption objects based on the extracted metadatainformation. As described above, metadata information may representnon-secure information related to the encryption objects. For instance,in the example shown in FIG. 18, non-secure metadata informationextraction data layer 1814 may identify a first set of attributes for afirst application App-1, a second set of attributes for a secondapplication App-2, and a third set of attributes for a third applicationApp-3 from the extracted metadata information stored in data stores1804. In this example, the first set of attributes for the firstapplication may include the name of the encryption object, theactivation date of the encryption object and the size of the encryptionobject. The second set of attributes for the second application mayinclude the name of the encryption object, user groups associated withthe encryption object, the activation date of the encryption object, andthe expiration date of the encryption object. The third set ofattributes for the third application may include the name of theencryption object, the version of the encryption object, the activationdate of the encryption object, and the roll over date of the encryptionobject. The first set of attributes, the second set of attributes, andthe third set of attributes identified by non-secure metadatainformation extraction data layer 1814 are exemplary illustrations ofthe types of attributes that may be identified by data layer 1814 fromthe extracted metadata information. In alternate embodiments, data layer1814 may be configured to identity fewer or more attributes for fewer ormore applications provided by external systems 1822.

Monitoring and alert data layer 1818 may be configured to generate a setof rules that may be applied to the attributes. As noted above, therules define a set of one or more conditions that may be applied to theattributes which when satisfied trigger the generation of one or morealerts related to the encryption objects. Monitoring and alert layer1818 may be configured to execute the rules at pre-determined intervalsof time. The pre-determined intervals of time may be configured by anadministrator of the service provider system, in some examples, orautomatically determined by the service provider system, in otherexamples.

For instance, per the example shown in FIG. 18, monitoring and alertdata layer 1818 may be configured to generate a first rule for a firstattribute (e.g., roll over date) for an encryption object (e.g.,encryption key) for an application (e.g., app-1) that specifies acondition that if the age of the encryption key is greater than 60 days(pre-determined value), then a new version of the key is to be createdand the key should be rolled over. When this condition specified by thefirst rule is satisfied, monitoring and alert data layer 1818 may beconfigured to trigger the generation of an alert. In this case, thealert that is triggered by monitoring and alert data layer 1818 mayinclude the transmission of a ‘one click’ roll over option to anadministrator of the encryption key to enable the administrator togenerate a new key. For instance, monitoring and alert data layer 1818may be configured to transmit the alert via alert UI (e.g., 1742)discussed in relation to FIG. 17 to the administrator of the encryptionkey in external system 1822.

Similarly, monitoring and alert data layer 1818 may be configured togenerate a second rule for a second attribute (e.g., number of days thatthe encryption object is valid) for an encryption object (e.g.,certificate) for an application (e.g., app-2) that specifies a conditionthat if the number of days that the certificate has been used by usersof the certificate is greater than a pre-determined value, then thecertificate is no longer valid and should be revoked from use for usersof the encryption object. When this condition specified by the secondrule is satisfied, monitoring and alert data layer 1818 may beconfigured to trigger the generation of an alert. In this case, thealert that is triggered by monitoring and alert data layer 1818 mayinclude the transmission of an option to an administrator of theencryption object to revoke the certificate. The generation of rules andthe transmission of alerts related to encryption objects by monitoringand alert data layer 1818 described above are for illustrative purposes.In other embodiments, monitoring and alert data layer 1818 may beconfigured to generate different, more or fewer rules for differentattributes associated with different encryption objects used bydifferent applications.

External systems 1822 may be the same as or similar to applicationhosting systems 1710 described in FIG. 17. For instance, externalsystems 1822 may represent organizations, third party systems, orcloud-service providers that provide, manage, or host a variety ofresources such as software products, applications (e.g., cloud-basedapplications, enterprise applications, or any other applications), cloudservices, various types of data (e.g., networked files, directoryinformation, databases, or the like) and other resources. Externalsystems 1822 may be implemented or included in a computing system.External systems 1822 may be implemented in hardware, firmware,software, or combinations thereof. External systems 1822 may beimplemented in a computing device, such as a PDA, a tablet computer, alaptop computer, a desktop computer, a wearable computer, a pager, etc.External systems 1822 can be implemented using one or more memorystorage devices and one or more processors. A memory storage device canbe accessible to the processor(s) and can include instructions storedthereon which, when executed by the processor(s), cause the processor(s)to implement one or more operations disclosed herein.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1900 forgenerating alerts related to an encryption object, in accordance with anembodiment of the present disclosure. The process is illustrated as alogical flow diagram, each operation of which represents a sequence ofoperations that can be implemented in hardware, computer instructions,or a combination thereof. In the context of computer instructions, theoperations represent computer-executable instructions stored on one ormore computer-readable storage media that, when executed by one or moreprocessors, perform the recited operations. Generally,computer-executable instructions include routines, programs, objects,components, data structures, and the like that perform particularfunctions or implement particular data types. The order in which theoperations are described is not intended to be construed as alimitation, and any number of the described operations can be combinedin any order and/or in parallel to implement the processes.

Additionally, some, any, or all of the processes may be performed underthe control of one or more computer systems configured with executableinstructions and may be implemented as code (e.g., executableinstructions, one or more computer programs, or one or moreapplications) executing collectively on one or more processors, byhardware, or combinations thereof. As noted above, the code may bestored on a computer-readable storage medium, for example, in the formof a computer program comprising a plurality of instructions executableby one or more processors. The computer-readable storage medium may benon-transitory.

FIG. 19 illustrates an example flow diagram showing process 1900illustrating the operations performed by a monitoring and alert serviceprovided by the data encryption service, in accordance with oneembodiment of the present disclosure. In some aspects, the process 1900of FIG. 19 may be performed by modules 1738, 1740 and 1742 of dataencryption service 1704 shown in FIG. 17. The process 1900 may begin at1902 when an encryption object related to an application is identified.The encryption object may include, for instance, an encryption key or adigital certificate used to secure information in the application. At1904, the process 1900 may include extracting metadata informationrelated to the encryption object. As noted above, metadata informationmay represent non-secure information related to the encryption objects.At 1096, the process 1900 may include identifying one or more attributesassociated with the encryption object to be exposed based on themetadata information. As noted above, the attributes may include a nameof the encryption object, an activation date of the encryption object,an expiration date of the encryption object, a size of the encryptionobject, user groups associated with the encryption object, a version ofthe encryption object, a roll over date of the encryption object, arenewal date of the encryption object and so on.

At 1908, the process 1900 may include generating a set of one or morerules that may be applied to the identified attributes. As noted above,the rules may define a set of one or more conditions that can be appliedon the attributes which when satisfied, trigger the generation of analert related to the attributes. At 1910, the process 1900 may includeexecuting the rules. At 1912, the process 1900 may include generating analert for the attributes based on the execution of the rules. In someembodiments, at 1914, the process 1900 may include transmitting an alertto one or more users when one or more conditions specified by the rulesare satisfied.

Computing Environments

FIG. 20 depicts a simplified diagram of a distributed system 2000 forimplementing an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the illustratedembodiment, distributed system 2000 includes one or more clientcomputing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008, which are configured toexecute and operate a client application such as a web browser,proprietary client (e.g., Oracle Forms), or the like over one or morenetwork(s) 2010. Server 2012 may be communicatively coupled with remoteclient computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008 via network 2010.

In various embodiments, server 2012 may be adapted to run one or moreservices or software applications such as services and applications thatmay perform data encryption services. In certain embodiments, server2012 may also provide other services or software applications caninclude non-virtual and virtual environments. In some embodiments, theseservices may be offered as web-based or cloud services or under aSoftware as a Service (SaaS) model to the users of client computingdevices 2002, 2004, 2006, and/or 2008. Users operating client computingdevices 2002, 2004, 2006, and/or 2008 may in turn utilize one or moreclient applications to interact with server 2012 to utilize the servicesprovided by these components.

In the configuration depicted in FIG. 20, software components 2018, 2020and 2022 of system 2000 are shown as being implemented on server 2012.In other embodiments, one or more of the components of system 2000and/or the services provided by these components may also be implementedby one or more of the client computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and/or2008. Users operating the client computing devices may then utilize oneor more client applications to use the services provided by thesecomponents. These components may be implemented in hardware, firmware,software, or combinations thereof. It should be appreciated that variousdifferent system configurations are possible, which may be differentfrom distributed system 2000. The embodiment shown in FIG. 20 is thusone example of a distributed system for implementing an embodimentsystem and is not intended to be limiting.

Client computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and/or 2008 may includevarious types of computing systems. For example, a client computingdevice may include portable handheld devices (e.g., an iPhone®, cellulartelephone, an iPad®, computing tablet, a personal digital assistant(PDA)) or wearable devices (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounted display),running software such as Microsoft Windows Mobile®, and/or a variety ofmobile operating systems such as iOS, Windows Phone, Android, BlackBerry10, Palm OS, and the like. The devices may support various applicationssuch as various Internet-related apps, e-mail, short message service(SMS) applications, and may use various other communication protocols.The client computing devices may also include general purpose personalcomputers including, by way of example, personal computers and/or laptopcomputers running various versions of Microsoft Windows®, AppleMacintosh®, and/or Linux operating systems. The client computing devicescan be workstation computers running any of a variety ofcommercially-available UNIX® or UNIX-like operating systems, includingwithout limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operating systems, such asfor example, Google Chrome OS. Client computing devices may also includeelectronic devices such as a thin-client computer, an Internet-enabledgaming system (e.g., a Microsoft Xbox gaming console with or without aKinect® gesture input device), and/or a personal messaging device,capable of communicating over network(s) 2010.

Although distributed system 2000 in FIG. 20 is shown with four clientcomputing devices, any number of client computing devices may besupported. Other devices, such as devices with sensors, etc., mayinteract with server 2012.

Network(s) 2010 in distributed system 2000 may be any type of networkfamiliar to those skilled in the art that can support datacommunications using any of a variety of available protocols, includingwithout limitation TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internetprotocol), SNA (systems network architecture), IPX (Internet packetexchange), AppleTalk, and the like. Merely by way of example, network(s)2010 can be a local area network (LAN), networks based on Ethernet,Token-Ring, a wide-area network, the Internet, a virtual network, avirtual private network (VPN), an intranet, an extranet, a publicswitched telephone network (PSTN), an infra-red network, a wirelessnetwork (e.g., a network operating under any of the Institute ofElectrical and Electronics (IEEE) 802.11 suite of protocols, Bluetooth®,and/or any other wireless protocol), and/or any combination of theseand/or other networks.

Server 2012 may be composed of one or more general purpose computers,specialized server computers (including, by way of example, PC (personalcomputer) servers, UNIX® servers, mid-range servers, mainframecomputers, rack-mounted servers, etc.), server farms, server clusters,or any other appropriate arrangement and/or combination. Server 2012 caninclude one or more virtual machines running virtual operating systems,or other computing architectures involving virtualization. One or moreflexible pools of logical storage devices can be virtualized to maintainvirtual storage devices for the server. Virtual networks can becontrolled by server 2012 using software defined networking. In variousembodiments, server 2012 may be adapted to run one or more services orsoftware applications described in the foregoing disclosure. Forexample, server 2012 may correspond to a server for performingprocessing as described above according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

Server 2012 may run an operating system including any of those discussedabove, as well as any commercially available server operating system.Server 2012 may also run any of a variety of additional serverapplications and/or mid-tier applications, including HTTP (hypertexttransport protocol) servers, FTP (file transfer protocol) servers, CGI(common gateway interface) servers, JAVA® servers, database servers, andthe like. Exemplary database servers include without limitation thosecommercially available from Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, IBM(International Business Machines), and the like.

In some implementations, server 2012 may include one or moreapplications to analyze and consolidate data feeds and/or event updatesreceived from users of client computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and2008. As an example, data feeds and/or event updates may include, butare not limited to, Twitter® feeds, Facebook® updates or real-timeupdates received from one or more third party information sources andcontinuous data streams, which may include real-time events related tosensor data applications, financial tickers, network performancemeasuring tools (e.g., network monitoring and traffic managementapplications), clickstream analysis tools, automobile trafficmonitoring, and the like. Server 2012 may also include one or moreapplications to display the data feeds and/or real-time events via oneor more display devices of client computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006,and 2008.

Distributed system 2000 may also include one or more databases 2014 and2016. These databases may provide a mechanism for storing informationsuch as application policies, cryptographic policies, encryptionobjects, and application information used by embodiments of the presentdisclosure. Databases 2014 and 2016 may reside in a variety oflocations. By way of example, one or more of databases 2014 and 2016 mayreside on a non-transitory storage medium local to (and/or resident in)server 2012. Alternatively, databases 2014 and 2016 may be remote fromserver 2012 and in communication with server 2012 via a network-based ordedicated connection. In one set of embodiments, databases 2014 and 2016may reside in a storage-area network (SAN). Similarly, any necessaryfiles for performing the functions attributed to server 2012 may bestored locally on server 2012 and/or remotely, as appropriate. In oneset of embodiments, databases 2014 and 2016 may include relationaldatabases, such as databases provided by Oracle that are adapted tostore, update, and retrieve data in response to SQL-formatted commands.

In some embodiments, the data encryption service described above may beincluded or implemented in a cloud environment to perform the dataencryption of applications. FIG. 21 is a simplified block diagram of oneor more components of a system environment 2100 in which the dataencryption services may be offered as cloud services, in accordance withan embodiment of the present disclosure. In the illustrated embodimentin FIG. 21, system environment 2100 includes one or more clientcomputing devices 2104, 2106, and 2108 that may be used by users tointeract with a cloud infrastructure system 2102 that provides cloudservices, including services for performing data encryption. Cloudinfrastructure system 2102 may comprise one or more computers and/orservers that may include those described above for server 2012.

It should be appreciated that cloud infrastructure system 2102 depictedin FIG. 21 may have other components than those depicted. Further, theembodiment shown in FIG. 21 is only one example of a cloudinfrastructure system that may incorporate an embodiment of thedisclosure. In some other embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2102may have more or fewer components than shown in the figure, may combinetwo or more components, or may have a different configuration orarrangement of components.

Client computing devices 2104, 2106, and 2108 may be devices similar tothose described above for client computing devices 2002, 2004, 2006, and2008. Client computing devices 2104, 2106, and 2108 may be configured tooperate a client application such as a web browser, a proprietary clientapplication (e.g., Oracle Forms), or some other application, which maybe used by a user of the client computing device to interact with cloudinfrastructure system 2102 to use services provided by cloudinfrastructure system 2102. Although exemplary system environment 2100is shown with three client computing devices, any number of clientcomputing devices may be supported. Other devices such as devices withsensors, etc. may interact with cloud infrastructure system 2102.

Network(s) 2110 may facilitate communications and exchange of databetween client computing devices 2104, 2106, and 2108 and cloudinfrastructure system 2102. Each network may be any type of networkfamiliar to those skilled in the art that can support datacommunications using any of a variety of commercially-availableprotocols, including those described above for network(s) 2110.

In certain embodiments, services provided by cloud infrastructure system2102 may include a host of services that are made available to users ofthe cloud infrastructure system on demand. In addition to servicesrelated to managing the data encryption for applications, various otherservices may also be offered including without limitation online datastorage and backup solutions, Web-based e-mail services, hosted officesuites and document collaboration services, database processing, managedtechnical support services, and the like. Services provided by the cloudinfrastructure system can dynamically scale to meet the needs of itsusers.

In certain embodiments, a specific instantiation of a service providedby cloud infrastructure system 2102 may be referred to herein as a“service instance.” In general, any service made available to a user viaa communication network, such as the Internet, from a cloud serviceprovider's system is referred to as a “cloud service.” Typically, in apublic cloud environment, servers and systems that make up the cloudservice provider's system are different from the customer's ownon-premises servers and systems. For example, a cloud service provider'ssystem may host an application, and a user may, via a communicationnetwork such as the Internet, on demand, order and use the application.

In some examples, a service in a computer network cloud infrastructuremay include protected computer network access to storage, a hosteddatabase, a hosted web server, a software application, or other serviceprovided by a cloud vendor to a user, or as otherwise known in the art.For example, a service can include password-protected access to remotestorage on the cloud through the Internet. As another example, a servicecan include a web service-based hosted relational database and ascript-language middleware engine for private use by a networkeddeveloper. As another example, a service can include access to an emailsoftware application hosted on a cloud vendor's web site.

In certain embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2102 may include asuite of applications, middleware, and database service offerings thatare delivered to a customer in a self-service, subscription-based,elastically scalable, reliable, highly available, and secure manner. Anexample of such a cloud infrastructure system is the Oracle Public Cloudprovided by the present assignee.

Cloud infrastructure system 2102 may also provide “big data” elatedcomputation and analysis services. The term “big data” is generally usedto refer to extremely large data sets that can be stored and manipulatedby analysts and researchers to visualize large amounts of data, detecttrends, and/or otherwise interact with the data. This big data andrelated applications can be hosted and/or manipulated by aninfrastructure system on many levels and at different scales. Tens,hundreds, or thousands of processors linked in parallel can act uponsuch data in order to present it or simulate external forces on the dataor what it represents. These data sets can involve structured data, suchas that organized in a database or otherwise according to a structuredmodel, and/or unstructured data (e.g., emails, images, data blobs(binary large objects), web pages, complex event processing). Byleveraging an ability of an embodiment to relatively quickly focus more(or fewer) computing resources upon an objective, the cloudinfrastructure system may be better available to carry out tasks onlarge data sets based on demand from a business, government agency,research organization, private individual, group of like-mindedindividuals or organizations, or other entity.

In various embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2102 may be adaptedto automatically provision, manage and track a customer's subscriptionto services offered by cloud infrastructure system 2102. Cloudinfrastructure system 2102 may provide the cloud services via differentdeployment models. For example, services may be provided under a publiccloud model in which cloud infrastructure system 2102 is owned by anorganization selling cloud services (e.g., owned by Oracle Corporation)and the services are made available to the general public or differentindustry enterprises. As another example, services may be provided undera private cloud model in which cloud infrastructure system 2102 isoperated solely for a single organization and may provide services forone or more entities within the organization. The cloud services mayalso be provided under a community cloud model in which cloudinfrastructure system 2102 and the services provided by cloudinfrastructure system 2102 are shared by several organizations in arelated community. The cloud services may also be provided under ahybrid cloud model, which is a combination of two or more differentmodels.

In some embodiments, the services provided by cloud infrastructuresystem 2102 may include one or more services provided under Software asa Service (SaaS) category, Platform as a Service (PaaS) category,Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) category, or other categories ofservices including hybrid services. A customer, via a subscriptionorder, may order one or more services provided by cloud infrastructuresystem 2102. Cloud infrastructure system 2102 then performs processingto provide the services in the customer's subscription order.

In some embodiments, the services provided by cloud infrastructuresystem 2102 may include, without limitation, application services,platform services and infrastructure services. In some examples,application services may be provided by the cloud infrastructure systemvia a SaaS platform. The SaaS platform may be configured to providecloud services that fall under the SaaS category. For example, the SaaSplatform may provide capabilities to build and deliver a suite ofon-demand applications on an integrated development and deploymentplatform. The SaaS platform may manage and control the underlyingsoftware and infrastructure for providing the SaaS services. Byutilizing the services provided by the SaaS platform, customers canutilize applications executing on the cloud infrastructure system.Customers can acquire the application services without the need forcustomers to purchase separate licenses and support. Various differentSaaS services may be provided. Examples include, without limitation,services that provide solutions for sales performance management,enterprise integration, and business flexibility for largeorganizations.

In some embodiments, platform services may be provided by cloudinfrastructure system 2102 via a PaaS platform. The PaaS platform may beconfigured to provide cloud services that fall under the PaaS category.Examples of platform services may include without limitation servicesthat enable organizations (such as Oracle) to consolidate existingapplications on a shared, common architecture, as well as the ability tobuild new applications that leverage the shared services provided by theplatform. The PaaS platform may manage and control the underlyingsoftware and infrastructure for providing the PaaS services. Customerscan acquire the PaaS services provided by cloud infrastructure system2102 without the need for customers to purchase separate licenses andsupport. Examples of platform services include, without limitation,Oracle Java Cloud Service (JCS), Oracle Database Cloud Service (DBCS),and others.

By utilizing the services provided by the PaaS platform, customers canemploy programming languages and tools supported by the cloudinfrastructure system and also control the deployed services. In someembodiments, platform services provided by the cloud infrastructuresystem may include database cloud services, middleware cloud services(e.g., Oracle Fusion Middleware services), and Java cloud services. Inone embodiment, database cloud services may support shared servicedeployment models that enable organizations to pool database resourcesand offer customers a Database as a Service in the form of a databasecloud. Middleware cloud services may provide a platform for customers todevelop and deploy various business applications, and Java cloudservices may provide a platform for customers to deploy Javaapplications, in the cloud infrastructure system.

Various different infrastructure services may be provided by an IaaSplatform in the cloud infrastructure system. The infrastructure servicesfacilitate the management and control of the underlying computingresources, such as storage, networks, and other fundamental computingresources for customers utilizing services provided by the SaaS platformand the PaaS platform.

In certain embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2102 may alsoinclude infrastructure resources 2130 for providing the resources usedto provide various services to customers of the cloud infrastructuresystem. In one embodiment, infrastructure resources 2130 may includepre-integrated and optimized combinations of hardware, such as servers,storage, and networking resources to execute the services provided bythe PaaS platform and the SaaS platform, and other resources.

In some embodiments, resources in cloud infrastructure system 2102 maybe shared by multiple users and dynamically re-allocated per demand.Additionally, resources may be allocated to users in different timezones. For example, cloud infrastructure system 2102 may enable a firstset of users in a first time zone to utilize resources of the cloudinfrastructure system for a specified number of hours and then enablethe re-allocation of the same resources to another set of users locatedin a different time zone, thereby maximizing the utilization ofresources.

In certain embodiments, a number of internal shared services 2132 may beprovided that are shared by different components or modules of cloudinfrastructure system 2102 to enable provision of services by cloudinfrastructure system 2102. These internal shared services may include,without limitation, a security and identity service, an integrationservice, an enterprise repository service, an enterprise managerservice, a virus scanning and white list service, a high availability,backup and recovery service, service for enabling cloud support, anemail service, a notification service, a file transfer service, and thelike.

In certain embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2102 may providecomprehensive management of cloud services (e.g., SaaS, PaaS, and IaaSservices) in the cloud infrastructure system. In one embodiment, cloudmanagement functionality may include capabilities for provisioning,managing and tracking a customer's subscription received by cloudinfrastructure system 2102, and the like.

In one embodiment, as depicted in FIG. 21, cloud managementfunctionality may be provided by one or more modules, such as an ordermanagement module 2120, an order orchestration module 2122, an orderprovisioning module 2124, an order management and monitoring module2126, and an identity management module 2128. These modules may includeor be provided using one or more computers and/or servers, which may begeneral purpose computers, specialized server computers, server farms,server clusters, or any other appropriate arrangement and/orcombination.

In an exemplary operation, at step 2134, a customer using a clientdevice, such as client computing devices 2104, 2106 or 2108, mayinteract with cloud infrastructure system 2102 by requesting one or moreservices provided by cloud infrastructure system 2102 and placing anorder for a subscription for one or more services offered by cloudinfrastructure system 2102. In certain embodiments, the customer mayaccess a cloud User Interface (UI) such as cloud UI 2112, cloud UI 2114and/or cloud UI 2116 and place a subscription order via these UIs. Theorder information received by cloud infrastructure system 2102 inresponse to the customer placing an order may include informationidentifying the customer and one or more services offered by the cloudinfrastructure system 2102 that the customer intends to subscribe to.

At step 2136, the order information received from the customer may bestored in an order database 2118. If this is a new order, a new recordmay be created for the order. In one embodiment, order database 2118 canbe one of several databases operated by cloud infrastructure system 2118and operated in conjunction with other system elements.

At step 2138, the order information may be forwarded to an ordermanagement module 2120 that may be configured to perform billing andaccounting functions related to the order, such as verifying the order,and upon verification, booking the order.

At step 2140, information regarding the order may be communicated to anorder orchestration module 2122 that is configured to orchestrate theprovisioning of services and resources for the order placed by thecustomer. In some instances, order orchestration module 2122 may use theservices of order provisioning module 2124 for the provisioning. Incertain embodiments, order orchestration module 2122 enables themanagement of business processes associated with each order and appliesbusiness logic to determine whether an order should proceed toprovisioning.

As shown in the embodiment depicted in FIG. 21, at step 2142, uponreceiving an order for a new subscription, order orchestration module2122 sends a request to order provisioning module 2124 to allocateresources and configure resources needed to fulfill the subscriptionorder. Order provisioning module 2124 enables the allocation ofresources for the services ordered by the customer. Order provisioningmodule 2124 provides a level of abstraction between the cloud servicesprovided by cloud infrastructure system 2100 and the physicalimplementation layer that is used to provision the resources forproviding the requested services. This enables order orchestrationmodule 2122 to be isolated from implementation details, such as whetheror not services and resources are actually provisioned on the fly orpre-provisioned and only allocated/assigned upon request.

At step 2144, once the services and resources are provisioned, anotification may be sent to the subscribing customers indicating thatthe requested service is now ready for use. In some instance,information (e.g. a link) may be sent to the customer that enables thecustomer to start using the requested services.

At step 2146, a customer's subscription order may be managed and trackedby an order management and monitoring module 2126. In some instances,order management and monitoring module 2126 may be configured to collectusage statistics regarding a customer use of subscribed services. Forexample, statistics may be collected for the amount of storage used, theamount data transferred, the number of users, and the amount of systemup time and system down time, and the like.

In certain embodiments, cloud infrastructure system 2100 may include anidentity management module 2128 that is configured to provide identityservices, such as access management and authorization services in cloudinfrastructure system 2100. In some embodiments, identity managementmodule 2128 may control information about customers who wish to utilizethe services provided by cloud infrastructure system 2102. Suchinformation can include information that authenticates the identities ofsuch customers and information that describes which actions thosecustomers are authorized to perform relative to various system resources(e.g., files, directories, applications, communication ports, memorysegments, etc.) Identity management module 2128 may also include themanagement of descriptive information about each customer and about howand by whom that descriptive information can be accessed and modified.

FIG. 22 illustrates an exemplary computer system 2200 that may be usedto implement an embodiment of the present disclosure. In someembodiments, computer system 2200 may be used to implement any of thevarious servers and computer systems described above. As shown in FIG.22, computer system 2200 includes various subsystems including aprocessing unit 2204 that communicates with a number of peripheralsubsystems via a bus subsystem 2202. These peripheral subsystems mayinclude a processing acceleration unit 2206, an I/O subsystem 2208, astorage subsystem 2218 and a communications subsystem 2224. Storagesubsystem 2218 may include tangible computer-readable storage media 2222and a system memory 2210.

Bus subsystem 2202 provides a mechanism for letting the variouscomponents and subsystems of computer system 2200 communicate with eachother as intended. Although bus subsystem 2202 is shown schematically asa single bus, alternative embodiments of the bus subsystem may utilizemultiple buses. Bus subsystem 2202 may be any of several types of busstructures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Forexample, such architectures may include an Industry StandardArchitecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, EnhancedISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) localbus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, which can beimplemented as a Mezzanine bus manufactured to the IEEE P1386.1standard, and the like.

Processing subsystem 2204 controls the operation of computer system 2200and may comprise one or more processing units 2232, 2234, etc. Aprocessing unit may include be one or more processors, including singlecore or multicore processors, one or more cores of processors, orcombinations thereof. In some embodiments, processing subsystem 2204 caninclude one or more special purpose co-processors such as graphicsprocessors, digital signal processors (DSPs), or the like. In someembodiments, some or all of the processing units of processing subsystem2204 can be implemented using customized circuits, such as applicationspecific integrated circuits (ASICs), or field programmable gate arrays(FPGAs).

In some embodiments, the processing units in processing subsystem 2204can execute instructions stored in system memory 2210 or on computerreadable storage media 2222. In various embodiments, the processingunits can execute a variety of programs or code instructions and canmaintain multiple concurrently executing programs or processes. At anygiven time, some or all of the program code to be executed can beresident in system memory 2210 and/or on computer-readable storage media2222 including potentially on one or more storage devices. Throughsuitable programming, processing subsystem 2204 can provide variousfunctionalities described above for managing security artifacts.

In certain embodiments, a processing acceleration unit 2206 may beprovided for performing customized processing or for off-loading some ofthe processing performed by processing subsystem 2204 so as toaccelerate the overall processing performed by computer system 2200.

I/O subsystem 2208 may include devices and mechanisms for inputtinginformation to computer system 2200 and/or for outputting informationfrom or via computer system 2200. In general, use of the term “inputdevice” is intended to include all possible types of devices andmechanisms for inputting information to computer system 2200. Userinterface input devices may include, for example, a keyboard, pointingdevices such as a mouse or trackball, a touchpad or touch screenincorporated into a display, a scroll wheel, a click wheel, a dial, abutton, a switch, a keypad, audio input devices with voice commandrecognition systems, microphones, and other types of input devices. Userinterface input devices may also include motion sensing and/or gesturerecognition devices such as the Microsoft Kinect® motion sensor thatenables users to control and interact with an input device, theMicrosoft Xbox® 360 game controller, devices that provide an interfacefor receiving input using gestures and spoken commands. User interfaceinput devices may also include eye gesture recognition devices such asthe Google Glass® blink detector that detects eye activity (e.g.,“blinking” while taking pictures and/or making a menu selection) fromusers and transforms the eye gestures as input into an input device(e.g., Google Glass®). Additionally, user interface input devices mayinclude voice recognition sensing devices that enable users to interactwith voice recognition systems (e.g., Siri® navigator), through voicecommands.

Other examples of user interface input devices include, withoutlimitation, three dimensional (3D) mice, joysticks or pointing sticks,gamepads and graphic tablets, and audio/visual devices such as speakers,digital cameras, digital camcorders, portable media players, webcams,image scanners, fingerprint scanners, barcode reader 3D scanners, 3Dprinters, laser rangefinders, and eye gaze tracking devices.Additionally, user interface input devices may include, for example,medical imaging input devices such as computed tomography, magneticresonance imaging, position emission tomography, medical ultrasonographydevices. User interface input devices may also include, for example,audio input devices such as MIDI keyboards, digital musical instrumentsand the like.

User interface output devices may include a display subsystem, indicatorlights, or non-visual displays such as audio output devices, etc. Thedisplay subsystem may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a flat-panel device,such as that using a liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display, aprojection device, a touch screen, and the like. In general, use of theterm “output device” is intended to include all possible types ofdevices and mechanisms for outputting information from computer system2200 to a user or other computer. For example, user interface outputdevices may include, without limitation, a variety of display devicesthat visually convey text, graphics and audio/video information such asmonitors, printers, speakers, headphones, automotive navigation systems,plotters, voice output devices, and modems.

Storage subsystem 2218 provides a repository or data store for storinginformation that is used by computer system 2200. Storage subsystem 2218provides a tangible non-transitory computer-readable storage medium forstoring the basic programming and data constructs that provide thefunctionality of some embodiments. Software (programs, code modules,instructions) that when executed by processing subsystem 2204 providethe functionality described above may be stored in storage subsystem2218. The software may be executed by one or more processing units ofprocessing subsystem 2204. Storage subsystem 2218 may also provide arepository for storing data used in accordance with the presentdisclosure.

Storage subsystem 2218 may include one or more non-transitory memorydevices, including volatile and non-volatile memory devices. As shown inFIG. 22, storage subsystem 2218 includes a system memory 2210 and acomputer-readable storage media 2222. System memory 2210 may include anumber of memories including a volatile main random access memory (RAM)for storage of instructions and data during program execution and anon-volatile read only memory (ROM) or flash memory in which fixedinstructions are stored. In some implementations, a basic input/outputsystem (BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transferinformation between elements within computer system 2200, such as duringstart-up, may typically be stored in the ROM. The RAM typically containsdata and/or program modules that are presently being operated andexecuted by processing subsystem 2204. In some implementations, systemmemory 2210 may include multiple different types of memory, such asstatic random access memory (SRAM) or dynamic random access memory(DRAM).

By way of example, and not limitation, as depicted in FIG. 22, systemmemory 2210 may store application programs 2212, which may includeclient applications, Web browsers, mid-tier applications, relationaldatabase management systems (RDBMS), etc., program data 2214, and anoperating system 2216. By way of example, operating system 2216 mayinclude various versions of Microsoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/orLinux operating systems, a variety of commercially-available UNIX® orUNIX-like operating systems (including without limitation the variety ofGNU/Linux operating systems, the Google Chrome® OS, and the like) and/ormobile operating systems such as iOS, Windows® Phone, Android® OS,BlackBerry® 10 OS, and Palm® OS operating systems.

Computer-readable storage media 2222 may store programming and dataconstructs that provide the functionality of some embodiments. Software(programs, code modules, instructions) that when executed by processingsubsystem 2204 a processor provide the functionality described above maybe stored in storage subsystem 2218. By way of example,computer-readable storage media 2222 may include non-volatile memorysuch as a hard disk drive, a magnetic disk drive, an optical disk drivesuch as a CD ROM, DVD, a Blu-Ray® disk, or other optical media.Computer-readable storage media 2222 may include, but is not limited to,Zip® drives, flash memory cards, universal serial bus (USB) flashdrives, secure digital (SD) cards, DVD disks, digital video tape, andthe like. Computer-readable storage media 2222 may also include,solid-state drives (SSD) based on non-volatile memory such asflash-memory based SSDs, enterprise flash drives, solid state ROM, andthe like, SSDs based on volatile memory such as solid state RAM, dynamicRAM, static RAM, DRAM-based SSDs, magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) SSDs, andhybrid SSDs that use a combination of DRAM and flash memory based SSDs.Computer-readable media 2222 may provide storage of computer-readableinstructions, data structures, program modules, and other data forcomputer system 2200.

In certain embodiments, storage subsystem 2200 may also include acomputer-readable storage media reader 2220 that can further beconnected to computer-readable storage media 2222. Together and,optionally, in combination with system memory 2210, computer-readablestorage media 2222 may comprehensively represent remote, local, fixed,and/or removable storage devices plus storage media for storingcomputer-readable information.

In certain embodiments, computer system 2200 may provide support forexecuting one or more virtual machines. Computer system 2200 may executea program such as a hypervisor for facilitating the configuring andmanaging of the virtual machines. Each virtual machine may be allocatedmemory, compute (e.g., processors, cores), I/O, and networkingresources. Each virtual machine typically runs its own operating system,which may be the same as or different from the operating systemsexecuted by other virtual machines executed by computer system 2200.Accordingly, multiple operating systems may potentially be runconcurrently by computer system 2200. Each virtual machine generallyruns independently of the other virtual machines.

Communications subsystem 2224 provides an interface to other computersystems and networks. Communications subsystem 2224 serves as aninterface for receiving data from and transmitting data to other systemsfrom computer system 2200. For example, communications subsystem 2224may enable computer system 2200 to establish a communication channel toone or more client computing devices via the Internet for receiving andsending information from and to the client computing devices.

Communication subsystem 2224 may support both wired and/or wirelesscommunication protocols. For example, in certain embodiments,communications subsystem 2224 may include radio frequency (RF)transceiver components for accessing wireless voice and/or data networks(e.g., using cellular telephone technology, advanced data networktechnology, such as 3G, 4G or EDGE (enhanced data rates for globalevolution), WiFi (IEEE 1102.11 family standards, or other mobilecommunication technologies, or any combination thereof), globalpositioning system (GPS) receiver components, and/or other components.In some embodiments communications subsystem 2224 can provide wirednetwork connectivity (e.g., Ethernet) in addition to or instead of awireless interface.

Communication subsystem 2224 can receive and transmit data in variousforms. For example, in some embodiments, communications subsystem 2224may receive input communication in the form of structured and/orunstructured data feeds 2226, event streams 2228, event updates 2230,and the like. For example, communications subsystem 2224 may beconfigured to receive (or send) data feeds 2226 in real-time from usersof social media networks and/or other communication services such asTwitter® feeds, Facebook® updates, web feeds such as Rich Site Summary(RSS) feeds, and/or real-time updates from one or more third partyinformation sources.

In certain embodiments, communications subsystem 2224 may be configuredto receive data in the form of continuous data streams, which mayinclude event streams 2228 of real-time events and/or event updates2230, that may be continuous or unbounded in nature with no explicitend. Examples of applications that generate continuous data may include,for example, sensor data applications, financial tickers, networkperformance measuring tools (e.g. network monitoring and trafficmanagement applications), clickstream analysis tools, automobile trafficmonitoring, and the like.

Communications subsystem 2224 may also be configured to output thestructured and/or unstructured data feeds 2226, event streams 2228,event updates 2230, and the like to one or more databases that may be incommunication with one or more streaming data source computers coupledto computer system 2200.

Computer system 2200 can be one of various types, including a handheldportable device (e.g., an iPhone® cellular phone, an iPad® computingtablet, a PDA), a wearable device (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounteddisplay), a personal computer, a workstation, a mainframe, a kiosk, aserver rack, or any other data processing system.

Due to the ever-changing nature of computers and networks, thedescription of computer system 2200 depicted in FIG. 22 is intended onlyas a specific example. Many other configurations having more or fewercomponents than the system depicted in FIG. 22 are possible. Based onthe disclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skillin the art will appreciate other ways and/or methods to implement thevarious embodiments.

Although specific embodiments of the disclosure have been described,various modifications, alterations, alternative constructions, andequivalents are also encompassed within the scope of the disclosure. Themodifications include any relevant combination of the disclosedfeatures. Embodiments of the present disclosure are not restricted tooperation within certain specific data processing environments, but arefree to operate within a plurality of data processing environments.Additionally, although embodiments of the present disclosure have beendescribed using a particular series of transactions and steps, it shouldbe apparent to those skilled in the art that the scope of the presentdisclosure is not limited to the described series of transactions andsteps. Various features and aspects of the above-described embodimentsmay be used individually or jointly.

Further, while embodiments of the present disclosure have been describedusing a particular combination of hardware and software, it should berecognized that other combinations of hardware and software are alsowithin the scope of the present disclosure. Embodiments of the presentdisclosure may be implemented only in hardware, or only in software, orusing combinations thereof. The various processes described herein canbe implemented on the same processor or different processors in anycombination. Accordingly, where components or modules are described asbeing configured to perform certain operations, such configuration canbe accomplished, e.g., by designing electronic circuits to perform theoperation, by programming programmable electronic circuits (such asmicroprocessors) to perform the operation, or any combination thereof.Processes can communicate using a variety of techniques including butnot limited to conventional techniques for interprocess communication,and different pairs of processes may use different techniques, or thesame pair of processes may use different techniques at different times.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that additions, subtractions, deletions, and other modificationsand changes may be made thereunto without departing from the broaderspirit and scope as set forth in the claims. Thus, although specificdisclosure embodiments have been described, these are not intended to belimiting. Various modifications and equivalents are within the scope ofthe following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: one or more computingdevices configured to provide one or more data encryption services; anda memory configured to store information related to a plurality ofapplications; wherein at least one computing device from the one or morecomputing devices is configured to: receive an application policyrelated to an application; identify at least a portion of data in theapplication to be secured based on the application policy; determine,based at least in part on the application policy, a cryptographic policyfor securing the portion of the data in the application; generate amapping between the application policy and the cryptographic policy forat least the portion of the data in the application; acquire anencryption object for securing at least the portion of the data in theapplication, based at least in part on the cryptographic policy; and inresponse to a request related to the application, secure at least theportion of the data in the application in accordance with theapplication policy, the cryptographic policy and using the encryptionobject.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein a computing device of the oneor more computing devices is further configured to generate a mappingbetween the application and the application policy related to theapplication.
 3. The system of claim 2, wherein a computing device of theone or more computing devices is further configured to: determine one ormore conditions associated with the application policy, wherein the oneor more conditions specify when the application policy for theapplication is applicable; identify, based at least in part on theapplication policy, one or more actions to be performed when one or moreof the conditions are satisfied; and generate the mapping between theapplication and the application policy based at least in part on the oneor more conditions and the one or more actions.
 4. The system of claim1, wherein a computing device of the one or more computing devices isfurther configured to: determine that a first condition is associatedwith the application policy when a first set of users access theapplication; determine that a second condition is associated with theapplication policy when a second set of users access the application,the second set of users being different from the first set of users;identify, based at least in part on the application policy, a firstencryption to be performed for at least the portion of the data in theapplication, when the first condition is satisfied; and identify, basedat least in part on the application policy, a second encryption to beperformed for at least the portion of the data in the application, whenthe second condition is satisfied.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein acomputing device of the one or more computing devices is furtherconfigured to: determine that a first condition is associated with anapplication policy for an application when a user accesses a firstportion of data in the application; determine that a second condition isassociated with the application policy for the application when a useraccesses a second portion of data in the application, the second portionbeing different from the first portion; identify, based at least in parton the application policy, a first action to be performed for theapplication, when the first condition is satisfied; and identify, basedat least in part on the application policy, a second action to beperformed for the application, when the second condition is satisfied.6. The system of claim 1, wherein a computing device of the one or morecomputing devices is further configured to generate a mapping betweenthe application policy, the cryptographic policy, and the encryptionobject for at least the portion of the data in the application.
 7. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the encryption object comprises at least oneof an encryption key or a digital certificate.
 8. The system of claim 1,wherein a computing device of the one or more computing devices isfurther configured to transmit notification information related to theapplication to a remote computing device in response to receiving therequest related to the application.
 9. The system of claim 1, whereinthe notification information comprises at least one of a roll-over dateof an encryption object used to secure at least the portion of the datain the application, an expiry date of the encryption object and arenewal date of the encryption object.
 10. A method comprising:receiving an application policy related to an application; identifyingat least a portion of data in the application to be secured based on theapplication policy; determining, based at least in part on theapplication policy, a cryptographic policy for securing the portion ofthe data in the application; generating a mapping between theapplication policy and the cryptographic policy for at least the portionof the data in the application; acquiring an encryption object forsecuring at least the portion of the data in the application, based atleast in part on the cryptographic policy; and in response to a requestrelated to the application, secure at least the portion of the data inthe application in accordance with the application policy, thecryptographic policy and using the encryption object.
 11. The method ofclaim 10 further comprising generating a mapping between the applicationand the application policy related to the application.
 12. The method ofclaim 11 wherein generating a mapping between the application and theapplication policy related to the application comprises: determining oneor more conditions associated with the application policy, wherein theone or more conditions specify when the application policy for theapplication is applicable; and identifying, based at least in part onthe application policy, one or more actions to be performed when one ormore of the conditions are satisfied.
 13. The method of claim 10 furthercomprising: determining that a first condition is associated with theapplication policy when a first set of users access the application;determining that a second condition is associated with the applicationpolicy when a second set of users access the application, the second setof users being different from the first set of users; identifying, basedat least in part on the application policy, a first encryption to beperformed for at least the portion of the data in the application, whenthe first condition is satisfied; and identifying, based at least inpart on the application policy, a second encryption to be performed forat least the portion of the data in the application, when the secondcondition is satisfied.
 14. The method of claim 10 further comprising:determining that a first condition is associated with an applicationpolicy for an application when a user accesses a first portion of datain the application; determining that a second condition is associatedwith the application policy for the application when a user accesses asecond portion of data in the application, the second portion beingdifferent from the first portion; identifying, based at least in part onthe application policy, a first action to be performed for theapplication, when the first condition is satisfied; and identifying,based at least in part on the application policy, a second action to beperformed for the application, when the second condition is satisfied.15. The method of claim 10 further comprising generating a mappingbetween the application policy, the cryptographic policy, and theencryption object for at least the portion of the application.
 16. Themethod of claim 10, wherein the encryption object comprises at least oneof an encryption key or a digital certificate.
 17. One or morenon-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executableinstructions executable by one or more processors, thecomputer-executable instructions comprising: instructions that cause theone or more processors to receive an application policy related to anapplication; instructions that cause the one or more processors toidentify at least a portion of data in the application to be securedbased on the application policy; instructions that cause the one or moreprocessors to determine, based at least in part on the applicationpolicy, a cryptographic policy for securing the portion of the data inthe application; instructions that cause the one or more processors togenerate a mapping between the application policy and the cryptographicpolicy for at least the portion of the data in the application;instructions that cause the one or more processors to acquire anencryption object for securing at least the portion of the data in theapplication, based at least in part on the cryptographic policy; and inresponse to a request related to the application, instructions thatcause the one or more processors to secure at least the portion of thedata in the application in accordance with the application policy, thecryptographic policy and using the encryption object.
 18. Thecomputer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the plurality ofinstructions further comprise instructions that cause the one or moreprocessors to generate a mapping between the application policy, thecryptographic policy, and the encryption object for at least the portionof the data in the application.
 19. The computer-readable media of claim17, wherein the encryption object comprises at least one of anencryption key or a digital certificate.
 20. The computer-readable mediaof claim 17, wherein the plurality of instructions further compriseinstructions that cause the one or more processors to transmitnotification information related to the application to a remotecomputing device in response to receiving the request related to theapplication.